


Primitive Weapons

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Action/Adventure, Anakin I totally won't get involved Skywalker, Anakin causes problems, Gen, How much trouble can two Jedi cause?, Pre-Sunshot Campaign, Set during Clone Wars, When Chaotic Good Goes Too Far, established but unmentioned Anidala, eventually wangxian, sibling relationships, why have i done this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24665143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: It's not his fault this time. Any Jedi, anyForce Userupon finding themself in orbit around a planet just leaking Force energy would fly down an investigate. Sure, he's out of fuel and stuck with someone else's padawan, but what if it's a secret Sith base? Or a kyber mine? Really, he's just doing his duty.It has nothing to do with the fact that travel rations taste abysmal.(Set after the Xuanwu of Slaughter happy cave bonding, but before the burning of Lotus Pier)
Comments: 113
Kudos: 101





	1. Rough Sailing

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who's waiting on an update to Reach Out of Your Grave: Oops.
> 
> For everyone who's waiting on Borderline: Don't get your hopes up.
> 
> For everyone from three fandoms ago: Godspeed.
> 
> For people who love Star Wars: I do, actually, like Ashoka, but her being so obviously non-human was something I didn't want to deal with. Enjoy the OC.
> 
> For people who love MDZS: Yes, I agree SW is/was ripping off the xianxia genre, so enjoy.

“I told you not to land on-world!”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“You were the pilot, so, yes, it’s your fault.”

“I saved our lives! You’re the one who blew our cover.”

“What cover? You’re the one who waltzed into a cantina with his lightsaber on his hip!”

The holoterminal clicked on, interrupting the fight. Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi’s translucent figure stared down at the two robed figures. On the left was Anakin Skywalker, his own padawan cum walking problem. On the right was Rhianon, a padawan who borrowed because she had such stunning marks he’d wrongfully assumed she’d keep Anakin out of trouble. He sighed.

“I see you’re still getting along fantastically.” Obi-wan clapped his hands. “Now, children,” they both groaned, “I want facts: not blame. If you can cooperate, we’ll just chalk this one up to the will of the Force, hmm?”

They glared daggers at each other for a long moment before turning back to the console. Ria spoke first. “We’re out of fuel, on the ground, on a primitive world.”

“We both felt something abnormal in the Force,” Anakin said.

“From orbit?”

Both padawans nodded.

“Now that we’re here, scanners are only picking up human signals. It’s probably one of the lost Rakata…” Anakin trailed off, trying to find the word he wanted.

“Farms. Just say it like it is. Human farms.” Ria crossed her arms over her chest. Like Anakin and Obi-wan, she was human. A thick scar started over her right eye and went back through her hairline, though her thick, black hair hid most of it. The masters that trained her had _claimed_ that the brain damage accrued during that injury explained why she was uncommonly docile for her age. Either they were wrong, or she’d undergone some miraculous healing in the last two weeks.

“Anyway, now that we’re on-world, the disturbance is greater. I hid the ship at the bottom of an empty canyon, but the Force is as heavy here as in the middle of a Jedi temple. It’s worth investigating.” Anakin was toeing the line of insubordinate arrogance. This kind of unsanctioned adventure is what got Jedi killed.

Obi-wan rubbed his temples. The kids were just supposed to gather information, instead they’d gotten into a dog fight and fallen out of hyperspace… wherever they were. It would take weeks to find them, even with their ship as a beacon. “It’s a good thing you both just _love_ travel rations, isn’t it? Since you’re going to stay in the ship until I get there.”

“But master-”

“There is no way to know what kinds of dangers are out there. Primitive weapons are still weapons and if the air is as thick with the Force as you say, that world may-well be crawling with malignant Force users. You can’t speak their language, so they’re probably going to curse you first and then ask questions you can’t answer later.”

“With respect, master.” Ria took a step forward, wearing her empty-eyed, docile expression that shouldn’t have fooled him for a moment, but somehow still managed to weaken his guard. “I know the language absorption technique. Humans have a Force sensitivity frequency of one per hundred billion. This kind of Force density isn’t explained by that statistic. Therefore, there must be an alternate source.” She glanced at Anakin, who jumped at the cue.

“Jedha and Ilum are our only sources of kyber crystals and the Separatists knows about both of them. If this planet is a source, it could be invaluable to the war effort.”

“And since you already have to spend so much time rescuing us…” Ria clenched her jaw, physically stopping herself from blaming Anakin again. “...It would simply be a waste to make you wander around the planet trying to find a mine when we can do it while we wait.”

Obi-wan pointed at her. “I’m updating your dossier. You’re not going to get away with this domestic loth cat kark with anyone else.”

“Master, I don’t know what you-”

“Cut the act or I’m remotely sealing the ship until I get there.” When Ria’s posture went from textbook to sulking, Obi-wan rubbed his face with both hands. Why did this have to happen to him? Even the padawan he borrowed was recalcitrant and too-clever for their own good. Meanwhile, outside of Anakin’s influence Ashoka had been such a delight to teach. “Can you teach Anakin the absorption technique without drawing blood?”

Ria shrugged. “It’s easier if I just pass it to him.”

Anakin snapped his eyes to her. “You can do that? That’s not in the technique documentation.”

“It doesn’t have to be if you’re not an idiot who leaves orbit because he saw something shiny,” she hissed back at him, not nearly quiet enough for Obi-wan to miss it. 

He is, however, kind enough to ignore it.

“Alright, here are the terms. You two _stay together._ I mean it. Pretend to be newlyweds if you have to. I don’t want you to lose sight of each other. Got it?”

“No one will believe that,” Ria said at the same time Anakain said, “Absolutely not.”

“If you don’t like it, stay on the ship. Say it was an arranged marriage. I don’t care. Second, Ria, keep a tracking beacon on you at all times. Since you’ll be together you only need one.” Thankfully they didn’t seem ready to fight that one. Time to give them the really bad news. “No lightsabers.” He muted their end of the call and watched his chrono. After two minutes, he unmuted them. “Are you done? Good. The last thing we need is this world figuring out how to make lightsabers and joining the war.”

“But-”

“No buts! There’s _probably_ a kyber mine, but it’s still _possible_ that there are simply that many Force users and we can’t risk it! So all of your technology stays on the ship. You want to play primitive detectives, you’ll do it with primitive tools. Also, you both need to meditate every morning and night to bolster your mental defenses. If someone reads your thoughts, that’s just as bad.”

Both stared at him with equal parts resolve and resentment on their faces, but clearly the threat of eating only travel rations for the next three months was enough to convince them. As one, they bowed with less-than-respectful “Yes, master” s. Obi-wan disconnected the call and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no way this would end well, but locking Anakin in a ship for that long was almost certainly going to be worse. He’d built droids out of rusted, spare parts he could scavenge as a slave’s son. He would tear apart and rebuild the ship. At best.

At least this way, the worst they could do was start some interpersonal disputes and throw a few punches. Not that he really believed that, but he would repeat it as a mantra until he got there with the fuel. He’d had such high hopes for Ria. He couldn’t even blame Anakin for corrupting her when clearly she’d been _like that_ beneath the surface the entire time. 

\---

By design, the only way out of the canyon was up. Anakin felt every single bruise, even as he used the Force to help him climb the sheer side. Removing all traces of medieval age or better technology - the scanner hadn’t picked up any quantities of explosive powder - had turned into a violent scuffle with Ria. They wrestled over buckles and checked the ship’s database for manufacture timelines until they were both left with a black eye each and boots hastily modified to support leatheris straps.

The top of the canyon was covered by a thick forest canopy that spread out in every direction. Anakin’s nose twitched and he fought against a sneeze. Ugh, pollen. Unfamiliar pollen, at that. He cycled some of his Force through his immune system in a plea for it to ignore it. It mostly worked. The tingling in his nose faded as the anomaly in the Force pressed against his senses. “Do you feel that?”

Ria nodded. Her own nose was red, but not broken, from their scuffle. Her hair had been held up by a series of elastics that she had been loath to part with. Now it was bound into a complex knot of braids tied off with a blue ribbon. Her robes were light blue and made of synthetic fiber, but they’d mutually agreed the people they would encounter wouldn’t have the tech necessary to know that. She pressed her hand against one of the trees and closed her eyes as she Sensed the edges of the forest.

“Unless we’re dealing with megafauna, I’m pretty sure I feel the road.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too wide to be a normal game trail.”

“If you can Sense how wide it is, surely-”

“Oh shut up. Do you want to do this? They don’t have advanced paving techniques, so it’s not a complete emptiness.”

Anakin grumbled. “If we could just use our scanners this would be easy. That’s why we invented them in the first place.”

“If you want to go back and argue with your master, you’re welcome to.” Without another word, she pushed off the tree and started picking her way through the forest. 

With annoyance prickling the back of his neck, Anakin followed. At first, his black robes caught on every leaf and twig, then he realized Ria was using the Force to keep the foliage at bay and followed her example, not that he’d ever tell her she had a good idea. He was so focused on not being impressed that he completely missed when she stopped and he crashed into her. 

She elbowed him silently in the gut and then pointed. A person with long, black hair and vivid red robes was sulking ahead of them. Though they wore a belt, they held their weapon in their hand as they walked. It was difficult to be certain from a distance, but it looked like a short vibroblade or a long tech knife. Most importantly, however, was the thick feel of Force emanating from them. There were no coincidences in the Force, but it was odd that the first person they encountered was a Force user.

Ria signalled him to go around left and then her hands flew through a series of signals he could barely translate. Her dossier hadn’t said anything about field work, so when had she become fluent in hand signs? Either way, the plan was to follow the stranger at a distance and see what they were up to.

After an hour, during which Anakin was well and thoroughly tired of Ria nudging him in the Force, the person in red stopped. Anakin froze, too, and reached out in the Force. Ahead of the person in red was a _second_ Force user and maybe they were on the very, very strange edge of probability and this population had a high population of Force users. Or both of them were in search of the same anomaly he and Ria were tracking. The questions were shelved when the person in red used the Force to speed their advance on the unseen person.

Without a word, Anakin and Ria intercepted. Anakin grabbed the person in red’s right wrist, stopping his blade in mid-air, while Ria stood in front of the second person, blocking them with her body and wide sleeves.

The two natives, both men, shouted in their own language. The second one, who wore blue and white robes as well as a headband, activated a signal flare with a touch of Force and then drew his own weapon. The man in red spun and tried to attack Anakin with a blast of Force that fizzled out against his own.

Ria told the man in white not to move in Basic, even though there was no chance he could understand her, and then moved over to the man in red. “Hold his arms behind his back.”

“He’s not _that_ weak, you know.”

She snatched the weapon out of the man’s hand and threw it on the ground, at which point he seemed to realize he didn’t stand a chance and capitulated to Anakin’s handling. Ria covered his face with her right hand and though nothing visible happened, the Force responded to her silent command in a rush that almost felt like a breeze. When the technique ended, her head jerked forward and she choked a few times before pulling away and pounding her chest.

“Okay, got it.”

“What did you do to him?”

“He’ll be confused for a while; pass him over to the other guy.” She then proceeded to vomit into the underbrush.

“Are you okay?”

“Can you shut up for five seconds?” She panted and accepted an object held out by the man in white. It turned out to be a canteen. She took a drink and passed it back with what was, probably, a thanks in his own language. 

While she recovered, Anakin dragged the man in red over to the one in white. From inside his sleeve, he pulled out a length of rope that glowed faintly with the Force. He tied a few efficient knots and then had the man in red kneel. 

“Okay, Anakin. Brace yourself. It’ll be easier getting the language from me, but languages aren’t exactly easy things to learn in a rush.” Before he could do anything, she grabbed his wrist and his mind was overwhelmed with foreign words and images. When his senses cleared, several others in white robes, all with the headband and long hair, had arrived. One stepped forward with a different headband. There was a silver fixture in the center of his forehead.

She held her arms out in front of her in a ring and kept her face pointed down. “Please accept this one’s apologies. This disciple is Ria of the Coruscant Jedi Sect. My _shidi_ and I were following this suspicious person.” 

Anakin shuffled to stand next to her. Though she’d shoved the language in his head, it was a muddled mess of impressions and politeness and relationships. He copied as much of what she’d said as he could. He copied her bow. “This one is Anakin of the Coruscant Jedi Sect.”

The man matched them with a bow of his own, after which Ria straightened. “I am Lan Xichen, the Leader of the Gusu Lan Sect. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the region of… Coruscant.” His pronunciation of the planet name was far better than Anakin would have guessed, given how different this language was from Basic. Xichen was frightfully pretty in that too-perfect way only strong Force users were.

Ria nodded her head low at the implied question. “We are from far away. We came by ship to the coast and followed what we felt to be an unusual concentration of spiritual energy.”

“Dongying?”

Ria exchanged a look with Anakin. Whatever the word was, the man they’d taken the language from didn’t know it. “This one does not understand.”

“Is Coruscant in Dongying?” Xichen rephrased.

Both Jedi shook their heads. Feeling slightly more comfortable with the language settling in, Anakin said, “We are from _very_ far away.”

“I see. Please, remain here for now. My disciples will make you comfortable in the meantime.” With those words, Xichen swept away in a dramatic swish of robes enhanced by the Force. The disciples nodded to them and then began to pull.... A frankly comical amount of things out of their sleeves. Cushions for the ground, more canteens, paper-wrapped packets of food.

In Basic, Anakin said, “Is it just me, or is there no way all of this stuff can fit in those sleeves?”

“What the fuck did we find?”


	2. Gold Standard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin and Ria struggle with 'No Fighting In Cloud Recesses' and become more confused the more they learn about this planet.

The disciples answered some, but not all of their questions. They were just outside Cloud Recesses, the home of Gusu’s Lan Sect. Their robes weren’t quite a uniform, but as part of the Lan Sect they were expected to wear white or blue pieces, subtle while still elegant in design. Their sect had many rules, but instead of explaining them, the disciples groaned and rubbed their wrists when asked. Anakin and Ria were not allowed to enter Cloud Recesses, but when asked why they received only dark looks and mutters of Wen-dogs. With those lines of inquiry exhausted, Anakin asked about their seemingly depthless sleeves.

The original guard was quick to answer, sitting next to them and drawing a pouch of out his sleeve. “This is a  _ qikun _ pouch. It can hold objects much greater than its own size.” To demonstrate, he started removing all sorts of things from a long, seven-stringed instrument to a calligraphy set to a half-finished embroidery project. Once it was empty, he shoved everything into his other sleeve and offered Ria the pouch.

Rather than risking breaking it, Ria immediately held it between herself and Anakin so they could both examine it. While he prodded it with the Force, she examined the careful embroidery that covered the pouch. She frowned at the patterns. “Do these look familiar to you?”

Anakin turned the pouch over and traced the threads with his fingers. “A little, but sorcery is a Sith art and I’m more concerned with droids, anyway.”

“Oh no, the Dark side bag is going to eat your soul,” Ria said.

“It  _ is _ unnatural, though-”

“Your whole  _ arm _ is unnatural. Don’t get me started.” She scoffed and pulled on the pouch, sticking her arm inside down to the elbow. “Actually, probably don’t stick your left arm in here.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Anakin pulled the pouch back and stuck his right arm in. His skin tingled like he was under a poorly-tuned scanner. He removed his arm and stuck his face in it, only to have the guard yank the pouch away.

“Ah, don’t do that. You won’t be able to breathe.” He snatched his hands back and folded them in his lap, looking contrite as if he hadn’t just tried to save Anakin’s life.

“Do you know how to make these?” Anakin asked. The language still felt odd in his mouth, but his head no longer swirled with it.

The man nodded. “In theory, it’s quite simple, but the arrays are complex and the quality drop is steep if your lines aren’t perfect. For the most part, only our artisans make them.” He pulled the trailing length of his sleeve and showed them the delicate embroidery there. “Our robes have defensive arrays sewn in, as well. They’re resistant to flame and blades and even resentful energy in a pinch.”

“Huh.” Anakin held his hand over the fabric and it resisted his small push of Force. He raised an eyebrow at Ria and switched back to Basic. “What do you think resentful energy is?”

“What do you mean what do I think it is? It’s exactly what it says. Energy that’s resentful.”

“Energy can’t be resentful; that’s not how the Force works.”

“That’s exactly how the Force works! What do you think Sith Corruption is?”

“Now you’re just making stuff up to sound smart-”

Before they could come to blows, another of the Lan disciples dropped his arm between them. “No fighting in Cloud Recesses.” The recitation of the rule was monotone, but as soon as the disciple realized what he’d actually done, he jerked his arm back and flushed. “I know we’re not  _ in _ Cloud Recesses, but Zewu-jun would be upset if he came back and you two were fighting.”

“Who?” Ria asked.

“Well, the only person who left was Lan Xichen, so I assume it’s him?” Anakin brightened at the disciple’s nod. “You have our apologies, then. We’ll do our best not to fight.”

“I’m going to tell your master you said that he’s going to laugh until he throws up.”

“You’re the only one whose stomach is that weak.”

“I don’t have a weak stomach. I have brain damage.”

Anakin groaned. How did every conversation turn into an argument? “You can’t use that as an excuse for everything.”

In deference to their captivated audience, Ria made a show of considering that statement, even going so far as to run her fingers along most of her scar. “Is it an excuse if it’s the truth? You realize I was stuck in the library for three years while my skull healed, right? That’s how I learned the absorption technique.”

“Speaking of that, doesn’t it take hours to complete depending on the language? You just touched him for a moment and had it.” Anakin propped his elbow on his knee and his head on his palm. He’d heard of Ria and her melon-soft skull during his own training. Her recovery had been something between a miracle and experimental Force healing.

She scratched her cheek and eyed their listeners before switching back to Basic. “Some things can be rushed if you really don’t want the locals to know you’ve never heard of them and their language. From what I learned during my language-learning adventure, respect is worth a lot more than money to these Forcers.”

“There are a lot of words focused on using the absolutely correct level of politeness. It’s giving me a headache just thinking about it.” Anakin looked up the hill toward Cloud Recesses. “So there are five disciples out here with us and inside there’s Xichen and artisans, plural. That’s a  _ lot _ of Force users. Nevermind everyone we don’t know about.”

Ria nodded. The air around them was thick with ambient Force energy and the five Lan disciples were warm beacons to her Force Senses. None of them were particularly strong, but it took only a touch of Force and a gap in protections to cause an aneurysm. The disciple they’d protected was staring at them intently, as if trying to puzzle out Basic. 

Without standing, Ria bent herself in half and spoke in his language. “Forgive us, this language is new and we’ve only just arrived after a long journey. We are doing our best to understand the situation here. Who was that man who attacked you?”

The man scooted closer to them after waving off her apology. “He is a member of the Qishan Wen sect. Some months ago, his sect attacked Cloud Recesses, burning much of it down and killing our sect leader, Zewu-jun’s father.” He shook his head, grief pulling at his eyes and mouth. “Then they kidnapped Second Young Master Lan and the heirs of the other sects for ‘indoctrination,’ but we knew the truth. They were hostages.”

“Are they…?” Ria asked gently.

“They managed to escape with few injuries, but the Wen-dogs still have their swords.” He balled his hands into fists, then pointedly straightened his posture and took even breaths.

“I take it these aren’t normal swords,” Anakin said. A flurry of images filled his mind: elegant, bladed weapons approximately the same shape. It was really strange to have a language transplanted into his mind.

“Of course not. They were the first-class spiritual tools belonging to the sect heirs. They’re irreplaceable.” He frowned. “Do you not have your own swords?”

Ria met Anakin’s eyes before shaking her head. “We have different spiritual weapons, but our master forbade us from bringing them, lest our presence be seen as a threat.”

One of the other disciples moved forward. “Ahh, that’s… unfortunate. It is actually quite rude to interact officially while unarmed. It implies you view those you meet with as unworthy of respect.”

Anakin grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to offend all of these Force users, but Obi-wan was right: they couldn’t risk a planet chock-full of Force users making their own lightsabers and joining the conflict. With a glance and nod exchanged with Ria, they silently agreed to imply they’d left their spiritual weapons with their Sect to explain not retrieving them from the ship.

“If we don’t want to show offense,” Anakin started carefully, “how could we rectify the situation without access to our own weapons?”

The five disciples conversed with a series of half-gestures and single words in a way reminiscent of boys who’d studied together under a strict teacher. There were several frowns and half-raised shoulders. In the end, it was one who hadn’t spoken yet that answered.

“The young masters are still missing their own weapons, so for the moment it will likely be overlooked. However, it would be best if you both acquired cultivation swords with haste.”

Anakin made a circle with his hands and bowed in his seat. “Thank you for your advice.”

The man they’d protected spoke up again. “You should tell Zewu-jun about your situation. He is very kind and will doubtlessly encourage the other sect leaders not to find offense in your actions.”

“We’re fortunate to have your guidance,” Ria said.

The disciples beamed at them, as if taking personal pride in their politeness. 

The next hour passed in relative silence, the Lan disciples occasionally speaking to one another, though the conversations were universally stopped with a firm ‘Gossip is forbidden’ once the stories started to get interesting. Eventually, the five disciples were replaced by two who came down from the hill with trays of food for Anakin and Ria.

“Please accept Zewu-jun’s apologies for leaving you outside. He is busy with sect matters regarding the Wen-dogs. He means no disrespect; it is simply that we are on the edge of war.”

“Of course,” Anakin answered. He took the tray and his heart sank. There were only so many shapes eating utensils took across the galaxy and these chopsticks were the ones he absolutely loathed. They were finicky, slippery and such a pain in the ass he usually ended up throwing them away and eating with his fingers. Ria seemed to notice because she made a mocking face and clicked hers together with dexterity. 

At least the meal was significantly better than travel rations.


	3. Consistency is Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin can't sleep and the Lan disciples very politely pretend not to eavesdrop.

The Lan disciples politely set up two tents for them and even more politely said nothing when Anakin and Ria piled into the same one. They also said that their Sect Leader would greet them in the morning. After a somewhat pained laugh, they clarified that ‘in the morning’ meant ‘very early in the morning’ for their clan. It didn’t matter. The two of them would trade off dozing and meditating. Real sleep would probably be impossible with the Force so thick in the air. 

Anakin laid down first while Ria slipped into the lotus pose for meditation. She sniffed. “Is your little girlfriend going to be upset about this?”

He covered his face with his elbow and groaned. He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d learned about Padme. Perhaps she’d searched his mind during an unguarded moment. He was almost too annoyed to be grateful she didn’t seem interested in telling any of the masters. “She’s not my girlfriend.” Which was technically true, since they’d married.

“I thought you were going to burst a vein when your master told us to pretend to be newly-weds.” She snorted. “You can’t think you’re going to get away with this forever.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“Too bad. Anyway, there’s precedent for families in the Order.” Though Ria was talking and clearly not meditating, the Force around her swirled as if she were. Despite their trek through the forest, her robes were free of both dirt and leaves. It just annoyed Anakin more.

“The Green Jedi are allowed families because of the cultural traditions of Corelia, which I’m not from.”

“Grandmaster Shan,  _ both _ Grandmasters Shan, had descendents. Do you think they just popped out of the ground?”

“Not everyone spent three years in the archives. I’ve never heard of any Grandmaster Shan, let alone two. Hasn’t Yoda been the Grandmaster for hundreds of years?”

Ria lifted one shoulder. “Yes, but the order is thousands of years old.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. It wouldn’t be allowed now.”

“You don’t know that. You didn’t ask.”

Anakin sat up and scowled. “There’s no point in asking. The Council has disapproved of me since before I was even a Jedi. Too old to train-”

“Nerfkark, the lot of it. How old were you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I bet it was younger than me. I was twelve when they shoved me in the archives. Kriff, I could have been up to sixteen according to the healers. Not that they have any idea. Not to mention it’s impossible to have a standard when different races mature at different rates. How old is too old for a chiss? Ten days?”

“If you think it’s all bantha dung, why are you encouraging me to push them more?”

“What choice do you have? Live in hiding until you’re so full of resentful energy-”

“Resentful energy doesn’t exist!”

Ria frowned in the wake of his outburst. She sat silently and then finally closed her eyes to meditate. The Force energy swirling around her tightened to a second skin that Anakin could almost see if he looked with the Force. He laid back down and turned away from her, but sleep didn’t come.

He could feel her nearby, but it wasn’t enough safety against the heavy otherness in the air. He purposely slowed his breathing and relaxed his muscles one by one. Even if he couldn’t sleep, his body would be able to rest. His heart ached, wondering if Padme knew he was stranded. If she worried. If she  _ should _ worry.

“Do you want to know what this place reminds me of?” Ria said suddenly.

Anakin jerked up into a sitting position and looked at her, but her eyes were still closed and she hadn’t moved from the lotus pose. He didn’t say anything before she continued.

“A thousand years ago, a Sith named Darth Bane came to power in the Sith Empire. He observed his devotees and realized a problem. Sith were more likely to fight each other than the Jedi. The back-biting and power-seeking made them weak. Fear your master. Fear your apprentice. These people are many and they are afraid. That’s why we’re kept outside of this Cloud Recesses.”

“What does it matter? The Empire is gone.”

Her eyes opened and glowed with the Force. “Just who do you think leads the separatists?”

“A few lone Sith can’t-”

Ria stood. “Darth Bane killed every Sith save his own apprentice. He killed thousands of Forcers and took full control, instating the Rule of Two. It only takes one, Anakin, and this is what we’ve walked into.” She blinked and the unnatural light in her eyes winked out.

“What are you getting at? Do you want to go back to the ship and wait?”

“This isn’t a kyber mine or a Force anomaly. This is a world filled to the brim with Forcers on the edge of war. The Wen Sect burned Cloud Recesses and sent one of their warriors to throw himself against the guards to see if it had been reclaimed. The leader of this Wen sect intends to become the next Darth Bane, eliminating all competition.”

“So we have to stop him.”

“And once he’s gone, what’s to stop one of the other factions from deciding that was a good idea? The Wen Sect kidnapped ‘the heirs of the other sects.’ This isn’t a two-sided conflict and I doubt any of them have the Jedi’s morals and restraint.”

“So we should just let them kill each other?”

“It’s not our place to interfere and I guarantee you the Council will be madder about this than your girlfriend.”

“I can’t just sit back and let them slaughter each other!”

“Why not?”

“Because we have to do the right thing! That’s why I became a Jedi!”

“Don’t forget that.” Ria’s words sounded like a threat. Before Anakin could question her further, she threw herself on the ground and wrapped her blanket around her head. “I’m going to sleep. I doubt we’ll get much from here on out.”

Whether or not she was actually asleep, she ignored all of his attempts to draw her back into conversation. Anakin spent the rest of the night mulling over the argument and trying to understand her. Despite being the model padawan on paper, she didn’t seem to care for the Jedi Council, though she also insisted he admit his relationship to be on better terms with them? It didn’t make sense and what was worse was that now that he was looking for it, he felt the same death-stained tenseness in the Force. The choking thickness of the Force just after a Force user’s life Force was rejoined to the greater galaxy. 

His uneasiness grew as dawn approached. There was an itch under his skin and a tug in his chest, somewhere near his heart. He gave up on meditating at the same time Ria threw off her blankets. She left the tent and straightened her robes. Just after Anakin joined her, Lan Xichen walked down the hill to greet them. Even in the fresh morning air, the uneasiness remained. Anakin caught Ria’s eye and she nodded with just the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown.

She stepped forward and bowed to Xichen. “Sect Leader Lan.”

Xichen returned the bow and looked them over. His face showed genuine concern. “Was your sleep troubled?”

“Your hospitality was most gracious,” Ria said. “It is… another matter.”

“Please, if it is something with which I can aid you, I would be honored.”

Anakin tried to hold down his grimace. “Our Sect cultivates a technique that gives us some level of spiritual perception.” The translation wasn’t exact, but Ria gave him a helpless shrug he took to mean she couldn’t phrase it any better.

Xichen held his chin consideringly. “Your spiritual perception should not be bothered, this close to Cloud Recesses. We have many wards to guard against spiritual activity and any ghosts or similar nearby have been long-since exorcised.”

After another exchange of looks, Ria tried again. “It is not a perception  _ of _ spirits. It is… intuition granted by spiritual energy.”

Both Jedi stiffened at the same moment, turning to look over their left shoulders, though the forest around them had not changed. The tug in Anakin’s chest was a firm, insistent yank pulling him in that direction.

“Danger,” Anakin said.

Ria bowed hastily, but deeply to Xichen. “Please excuse us. Our sect requires that we intervene in incidents that cause great loss of life.”

Startled, Xichen looked in the direction they’d turned. “Has something happened?”

“It’s about to.” Ria dropped her arms and nodded to Anakin. Together, they took off through the forest, each footfall boosted with a heavy push of Force. They didn’t know where they were going aside from the internal pull and the Force whispering haste in their ears. 

For the first hour, they felt a blip in the Force as someone from the Lan sect followed them. Eventually the gap became too large and they were alone, racing across the countryside with inhuman speed. 

“I could probably build a speeder faster than we can run there,” Anakin muttered, letting the Force carry his complaint to Ria.

“With what parts, exactly? And what power source? The people here haven’t even invented lithium batteries yet, let alone anything with significant power.” Ria held a hand over her scar as she ran. “Do you have any sense of what we’re running into?”

“Not blaster fire.”

“Anakin.”

“What do you want from me? I’m attuned to droids and tech. I’m basically running blind here.”

“The elevation’s dropping.”

“Based on the scans when I landed, there shouldn’t be another sea for some time.”

Ria ran close and threw out her hand. “Grab me.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m going to scan through the language memories and see if I can get an idea of where we’re going and I can’t see while I’m doing that.”

“Is now the time for that?”

“I think we’d both appreciate knowing before we stumble ass-first into Qishan.”

Anakin grabbed her wrist without breaking stride. “Fine, fine. Just don’t throw up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obi-wan: Why didn't you know better than to trust Palpatine?  
> Anakin: Maybe because you didn't teach me any Force history?


	4. The Lady of Lotus Pier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madam Yu is absolutely terrifying. Anakin is the last to find out.

“Well?”

“Shut up or I really will throw up on you.” Ria rubbed the bridge of her nose and breathed through her mouth. “We just crossed into Yunmeng.”

“Oh thanks,” Anakin said sarcastically. “That tells me everything.” They were still running with Force-aided steps. While dragging Ria along, he’d almost let her crash into an animal the stolen language informed him was a donkey, but at the last moment had thought that would be too cruel to the animal.

“The disturbance is probably at Lotus Pier; that’s the Jiang Sect’s Cloud Recesses.”

“Why don’t Jedi enclaves have cool names?”

“They learned a few thousand years ago that uniformity kills creativity and rebellion.”

“That… Wasn’t a serious question.”

Ria didn’t respond, instead letting Anakin stew on the implications. Did Ria hate the Jedi? The more she talked about it, the more likely it seemed. Not that she seemed partial to the Sith, but what choice was there? Actually, that was a good question. The Jedi Council hadn’t wanted Anakin to be trained, which left what, exactly? Would they have put him back in slavery? Stolen him from his mother just to leave him with foster parents? Left him with these senses and abilities he couldn’t control?

She was right about one thing: the Jedi Order was thousands of years old. Surely they already had established protocol for that kind of thing? He was unsettled in a way that was happening far too frequently lately. At least the criticism was leveled at the Order instead of him for once. 

His thoughts didn’t go much further. The tug of Force Intuition in his chest was too strong, too distracting. They dropped out of their unnatural run and settled into a fast walk as they approached Lotus Pier. He glanced over at Ria and her expression was tight. “What do we tell them?”

“The truth. If their leader has anything even close to Xichen’s level of Force-power, they’ll see through a lie. All we have to do is convince them we also want whomever’s about to attack them to fail.”

Anakin stopped just before the Jiang guards. “Are we sure that’s what we want? How do we know the invasion force isn’t the good guys? If it’s not the Wen Sect, we have no idea where anyone stands politically.”

“By the ancestors, didn’t Obi-wan teach you anything? We go in, see how they react to what we say and we play it by ear. Given the  _ scale _ on which we’re feeling this disturbance, I’m sure it’ll be obvious fairly quickly who the bad guys are.” She held out her arm to keep him from running ahead. “I have to go first.”

“What? Why? They’re clearly patriarchal.”

“Because I introduced you as my  _ shidi _ to the Lan clan and we have to be consistent.”

“I’m older than you!”

Ria rolled her eyes. “Just because you have no control over your Force doesn’t mean you’re older than me.”

“What are you…” He narrowed his eyes at her. The thrum of Force Intuition was strong in his chest, but something about the conversation felt significant.

“Didn’t you notice how young Xichen and his disciples looked? Would you trust a bunch of teenagers to run the Order? Of course not, so why do they? Easy: they’re older than they appear.”

“The Jedi Council-”

Ria held up a hand to stop him. “Thousands of years of experience. Humans outside of the Order, humans with little or no exposure to the Force had no respect for young-looking masters. But here? In a world where there are as many Force Sensitives as common folk? Of course youth would be idealized.”

“So you just decided that since you look younger that you could say I was your junior?”

“The other option was Obi-wan’s story. No one would believe us to be blood relatives. And I don’t know if you noticed, but you don’t exactly look like the locals.”

“And you do?”

“At least my skin isn’t as white as the driven snow! I can pass for a native and excuse your behavior as not knowing any better. One of us has to be chained to propriety and I made it me, so you can act on your own!”

Anakin flinched from the words like a slap. “I didn’t realize you put that much thought into it. With how ritualized everything is, it would be hard to actually get things done.” He grimaced. “Not that the Council’s bureaucracy is better. Alright, after you and… thanks.”

\---

Sect Leader Jiang was absent and the disciple that brought them inside was more than a little cagey about his absence. They were brought through an empty training yard and into a waiting room. A servant brought them tea and said that Madam Yu would see them shortly. Now that they were inside of Lotus Pier the tugging in their chests had been replaced by a thick tension in the air. It had been mid-afternoon when they arrived and as each minute passed to sundown, it became harder to breathe.

Ria rubbed two fingers into the thick scar tissue on her forehead and frowned at the wall as they waited. She broke the silence. “At least we can be reasonably sure the ground won’t explode under us.”

“You must be so fun at parties,” Anakin replied in monotone. It wasn’t particularly funny, but they were both so wound up that they burst into impolitely loud laughter. Of course, that was when two neatly-dressed women in shades of purple came in to lead them to the main hall. Their faces betrayed nothing past vague disinterest, but they radiated disapproval in the Force. Aside from Xichen, they were the strongest Force users they’d encountered.

“Our lady is waiting for you,” one of the women said. 

The main hall was a large, rectangular room with a throne whose back was carved in the shape of the nine-petal lotus. Both sides of the aisle were lined with highly polished, low, wooden tables and block chairs. Madam Yu was a petite woman with a stronger presence than most generals Anakin knew. Her clothes were a deep violet and her hairpiece could obviously be used as a weapon. Though she didn’t have a sword in hand, another burst of Force Intuition told Anakin her ring was a weapon of some sort.

Ria led him in a low bow. She left her arms in a circle when they straightened their backs. “This disciple is Ria of the Coruscant Jedi Sect. I beg your forgiveness for appearing without notice or invitation.”

Her dismissive gesture was as sharp as her finely manicured nails. “Very well, why have you come to Lotus Pier.”

Ria was sweating. Her mental defenses were so strong Anakin wouldn’t have known she was standing next to him if he couldn’t see her. “Our Sect’s practices result in a strong connection with the greater flow of spiritual energy in the world, not simply in our own bodies.”

Madam Yu’s lips pressed tight into a thin line as she listened.

Ria swallowed, but didn’t break eye contact. “This gives us some measure of warning before great calamity. One such warning led us here.” She instantly dropped to her knees with a resounding crack of bone. Once Anakin had followed suit, she lowered her upper body to the ground in a full kowtow. “It is not meant as disrespect to your authority or power. This one is simply bound by the tenets of the Jedi Sect to respond to every warning felt.”

Without lifting from the kowtow, Anakin suddenly understood. It was a gross slight to imply that the Jiang Sect would be unable to defend themselves. Plenty of people rejected the help of the Jedi, even when they knew who they were and the thousands of years of partnership with the Republic. His heart swelled with appreciation for Ria’s taking responsibility. Xichen had been mild-mannered and kind. Madam Yu was cut from a different cloth entirely.

“Rise,” Madam Yu said.

At the order, Ria only rose to her knees, so Anakin followed her example.

Madam Yu must have approved, since she didn’t start punishing or berating them, though her expression didn’t change. “What, then, is this calamity?”

As soon as the question was in the air, a wave of Force energy reverberated through the air. Ria choked on it and clutched her scar. Her eyes squeezed shut and her posture wavered. “It’s here.”

Madam Yu stood to demand an answer, but before the words left her mouth, shouting in a different part of the estate rang loud enough to carry to the main hall. Her head snapped to the side. “Jinzhu.”

One of the two women before her nodded and left toward the sound.

Madam Yu turned back to Ria and Anakin. “Stand.” Once they were on their feet, she gestured for them to move to the side of the hall. The other woman that had flanked her moved to stand behind them, her posture a silent threat. Anakin was only mostly sure the woman wouldn’t be able to kill them.

Jinzhu returned with two young men who looked Ria’s age and a gaggle of younger children. They all bowed to Madam Yu. Only one of the young men, the one with black robes and a red ribbon in his hair, turned to look at Anakin and Ria. And even his head snapped back when Madam Yu spoke.

“What is this caterwauling about? Do you have no sense of decorum? Your father leaves for a day and this is how you act?”

The young man in purple flinched from the razor-sharp words.

One of the children pressed forward, tears staining his cheeks and voice. “The bad lady took sixth shidi!”

“Who?”

Before any of the children could answer - clearly they had run to the older boys for help first - the disciple that brought Anakin and Ria from the gate ran into the hall, fear pulling his skin tight across his face. He trembled until Madam Yu commanded him to speak. 

“Go on.”

“The Wen Sect is here. They demand an audience.”

“ _ Demand _ ? They dare come to  _ my _ home, kidnap one of my disciples and  _ demand _ anything from me?” She turned to the children. “Go to your rooms. Now.” She looked back at the guard. “Fine. Bring them to me.” She stalked across the hall and grabbed Ria by the chin, yanking her face down and digging her nails into Ria’s dark skin. “What do you know about this?”

“We Sensed only that something would happen; no specifics. We came from Gusu Lan where a Wen scout attacked one of their guards.” Ria removed the  _ qikun _ pouch from her sleeve. “We don’t have such things in Coruscant. It was given to us as a gift.”

Madam Yu snatched the bag from her hand and examined the embroidery. Amid the arrays that made the pouch work was the cloud symbol of the Lan sect. She shoved it roughly into Ria’s hands and then returned to stand before her throne. 

The two young men moved to stand opposite them. The one in black clearly lacked a self-preservation instinct because he mock-bowed and mouthed out half an introduction before the one in purple elbowed him.

The Jiang disciple returned with ‘the bad lady’ and her entourage. He introduced her as Wang Lingjiao and wisely left as quickly as he could. The entourage was entirely armed and armored male soldiers in red with flames stitched onto their clothing. None of them had significant Force power, with Wang Lingjiao being the weakest of all. Instead of a sword, she carried an iron branding rod. 

Anakin met Ria’s glance. Either of them could beat this group singlehandedly, nevermind Jinzhu, the woman who resembled her, Madam Yu and the two teenagers, both of whom nearly glowed with Force. But the calamity they’d Sensed was also not the deaths of these people. The woman and twelve soldiers weren’t nearly enough. The Jedi could only stand in tense silence as the woman from the Wen Sect insulted Madam Yu and the Jiang Sect with empty arrogance that showed her lack of awareness of the danger.

Madam Yu looked down her nose at Wang Lingjiao. “Why did you kidnap our disciple?”

“Are you questioning me?” Wang Lingjiao laughed with an empty, bell-like tone. Prostitution was the oldest profession. It made sense they would have the same tricks no matter which planet they were. “He disrespected the Wen Sect.”

Ria quietly mimed gagging during the Wen prostitute’s histrionics about a  _ kite _ of all things. The teenager in black met her eye and winked. Anakin and the teen in purple elbowed their partners at the same time with similar, aggrieved expressions. 

Frankly, Anakin’s opinion of Madam Yu had changed drastically. Clearly she had the patience of the most esteemed Jedi Master to ever grace the council if she could listen to that drivel without killing her with a glare alone. 

“So you came here for a kite?”

“Of course not. I’m here on behalf of the Wen Clan and Young Master Wen Chao to punish someone.”

The name rang in Anakin’s head and a touch on his arm from Ria told him she felt it, too. This vanguard wasn’t the calamity, but Wen Chao was involved in it. His palm itched. He wanted his lightsaber. This would be over in seconds if he could just- Ria grabbed his arm and wrapped him in a blanket of Force to keep him from moving. She pressed the hand sign for ‘hold position’ into his back.

“To punish whom?”

Wang Lingjiao dramatically pointed to the teenager in black, her tacky bracelets jangling around her wrist. “Wei Wuxian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey, please drop me a comment and let me know what you think ^^
> 
> I will say I spend a lot of time laughing while writing this. Not the end of this chapter. That was me suffering while listening to JC scream for his parents.


	5. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wen Zhuliu can do basic math.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Wen Zhuliu can do basic math.meme](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/post/618219086281850880/hunxi-guilai-loony-moony-world)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Some dialogue taken from the cartoon, some taken from the drama. 🙏

Several things fit into place at once. Neither Wei Wuxian nor the teenager next to him had swords. These aggressors were the Wen - the same Sect that attacked Cloud Recesses. Therefore, those two young men were most likely some of the young masters who had their spiritual swords taken. Which meant the Wen Sect was attacking the partially disarmed sects after losing their hostages. Anakin tried to communicate his conclusions to Ria, but she was staring outside the hall, waiting for Wen Chao to appear.

Meanwhile, Wang Lingjiao was still grandstanding. “He caused a disruption during the night hunt at Dusk Creek Mountain. His interference almost ruined Young Master Wen Chao’s plans. He must be punished severely. You agree don’t you, Madam Yu?”

Anakin’s skin itched as he watched Madam Yu. He could almost smell that ozone that came from Force lightning. These people weren’t Sith, but neither did they have clear delineation between abilities aside from what they called resentful energy. Though that was only the Lan Sect. Was Force lightning made with resentful energy?

Wang Lingjiao cupped her chin in false coquettish thought. “If I remember correctly, Wei Ying is the son of a servant, right? Sect Leader Jiang isn’t here. I’m sure you know the right thing to do.”

Ria flicked her gaze at the prostitute, reevaluating her nature. She wasn’t quite as toothless as she appeared. Rather, she knew how to goad someone else into using their own fangs.

“If the Jiang Sect still wants to defend him… Well, it will make people wonder if the rumors are true.”

The teenager in purple stepped forward to defend his friend, but the moment he opened his mouth, it clicked shut again. Ria had her eyes trained on him and her left hand closed in a tight fist as she held him silent.

Wei Wuxian grabbed his friend’s shoulder. “Jiang Cheng. What-”

Jiang Cheng shook his head and pulled at his jaw, though it didn’t help.

“The Lan silencing spell?”

Jiang Cheng shook his head furiously. 

Madam Yu stood in a rush and stalked up to Wang Lingjiao, grabbing her chin in the same punishing grip she’d used on Ria. “You dare to silence my son? In my house?”

Ria released hold on Jiang Cheng’s jaw and glanced at Anakin. He nodded. It was almost time.

Wang Lingjiao’s eyes went wide with fear. Madam Yu raised her hand until the woman was standing on her tiptoes. “I- I didn’t-”

She was released only to be backhanded with enough power that she fell to the floor. Madam Yu stood over her like a proud statue. “You  _ couldn’t. _ Wang? There is no Wang clan I’ve heard of.”

Wang Lingjiao tried to crawl away, shouting frantically. “If you would just acquiesce, Young Mas-”

The ring on Madam Yu’s right hand transformed into a whip of Force lightning. She struck the woman on the ground in the back. “Don’t say words you don’t even know the meanings of, child. Slither back to whatever gutter you crawled out of.”

“Wen Zhuliu! Wen-” Wang Lingjiao’s mouth snapped shut, just as Jiang Cheng’s had, but it was too late. Another Force user, the strongest they’d felt so far on this world, appeared at the entrance of the main hall, summoned by the call of his name. He wore no sword, but his gloved hands glowed with the Force like tiny stars.

Madam Yu stared him in the eye. Without looking away, she said, “Jinzhu, Yinzhu.”

On her command, her two guards sprinted around the room, efficiently killing all of Wang LingJiao’s entourage with a series of slashes too slow for normal sight to follow.

Ria jerked her left arm back and Wang Lingjiao’s neck snapped back with an audible crack.

“Ria! Did you just-”

She spun on Anakin and grabbed the front of his robes. “Now is not the fucking time. Unless you forgot the reason we’re here; we have bigger problems.”

“You just killed her with the Force!”

“And you would have done it with your lightsaber. Get over yourself.”

“Core-melting Hand,” Madam Yu said, calm, as if she wasn’t surrounded by Wen Sect corpses. “And she called you Wen Zhuliu?”

He nodded, leaving his head high. He eyed Wang Lingjiao’s body, but no emotion crossed his face.

“As I remember, your name is Zhao Zhuliu. Is this how you show respect to your ancestors?” Without waiting for a response, Madam Yu lunged at him, her Force lightning whip crackling through the air.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian ran around the outside of the room to Anakin and Ria’s side. Jiang Cheng spoke first, not fully looking away from the fight. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m Anakin and this is Ria. We knew something terrible was about to happen, so we ran here from Gusu.”

“Gusu?” Wei Wuxian asked, all of his attention suddenly on Anakin. “Did you see-”

“Wei Wuxian! Do you not care what’s happening in our own house?” Jiang Cheng interrupted.

“It’s about to get a lot worse,” Ria said. As if to punctuate her statement, red light streamed in from the windows. “Do you have any other weapons or can you only use the swords the Wen Sect stole?” She held her right hand to the side and one of the Wen soldier’s swords flew through the air until the scabbard smacked into her palm. She offered it to them.

Wei Wuxian shook his head and pulled out a pile of yellow papers from his sleeves.

Jiang Cheng frowned and also reused to take it. “A Wen sword might fight against us, but there are other low-class spiritual weapons here.

Ria drew the sword and felt no resistance in the Force, so she passed it to Anakin and summoned another from the ground. The second sword held residual Life Force from its previous owner, but Ria blasted through it in a moment, making it glow with a soft, yellow light. 

“You-!” Jiang Cheng cut himself off, covering his mouth with one hand. “You just made that sword forget its owner.”

“This is going to be a really long night  _ without _ you questioning every strange thing we do. Just accept it, try not to get killed and we’ll explain what we can after.” Ria pointed. “Wei Wuxian, right?”

He straightened his stance, as if she was some kind of authority. Or as if he were mocking her. “Yes.”

“Take me to the edge of the spiritual defenses. We don’t have long before the real attack begins.” He nodded and took off at a jog, Ria a step behind him.

Anakin was about to follow when Madam Yu shouted in pain. She slid back across the hall from the strength of Wen Zhuliu’s attack and would have fallen to the floor if Jiang Cheng hadn’t caught her. 

Without a thought, Anakin stepped in front of Wen Zhuliu and took a hit to the stomach from his open palm. It burned and felt like the other man was trying to rip out his intestines without breaking the skin. Anakin kicked him in the chest and parried his next attempted strike with the borrowed scabbard. He had to use the Force to hold Wen Zhuliu back, but it was much easier than trying to hold back Master Obi-wan’s lightsaber.

Wen Zhuliu stared at him, his determined expression replaced with confusion. “How…?”

Anakin threw him back. “You’re strong but you’re not that strong.”

Wen Zhuliu bared his gritted teeth. “How can you not have a golden core?”

Anakin grinned and attacked with the sword. “Master always said I was special.” A physical sword was similar to and completely different from a lightsaber. The weight was strange, but it accepted his guiding Force and danced through the air. Wen Zhuliu wasn’t a terrible opponent, but he wasn’t even close to Obi-wan’s level and his primary strategy seemed to be to punch Anakin in the stomach, which didn’t make sense given how that left him open to easy strikes against his arms.

Before long, Anakin had him pressed against a wall. Before he could demand his surrender, Madam Yu’s Force lightning whip struck out and wrapped around his neck. Anakin was so surprised he just stood there, sword loose in his hand as Wen Zhuliu was strangled.

When he was dead, Madam Yu retracted the whip into her ring and stared between Anakin and Jiang Cheng. “Well? Stop standing around and get to work. The Wen Sect will  _ not _ take Lotus Pier!”

Jiang Cheng ran out of the main hall first. As Anakin went to follow him, Madam Yu grabbed his wrist and held two fingers of the blood vessels closest to the skin. She frowned and pressed her fingers harder. In a rush, her Force breached his defenses and skimmed under his skin like fire. He jerked out of her grasp. “Ow!”

“Don’t yelp like a child.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “How are you able to cultivate without a golden core?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of that. Ria’s studied a lot more spiritual theory than I have. You’ll have to ask her.”

Madam Yu was clearly unsatisfied with his answer, but seemed to believe he was telling the truth. She frowned bitterly and stalked out of the hall and out into the rest of the estate where her people were engaged in battle with Wen Soldiers.

Anakin followed the distinctive feel of Ria’s Force and joined her against a ring of four Wen soldiers. They were stronger than the ones who had come with Wang Lingjiao, but nowhere near Wen Zhuliu’s level. The Jiang Sect had the advantage of fighting on their own territory, but that itself was a double-edged sword with how they had to protect as much of the structures as they could. 

Not only did the Wen Sect have numbers, but they seemed to delight in setting things on fire. Jiang disciples as young as thirteen were running around the edges of battle, throwing buckets of water onto the flames and dodging talismans and strange energy blasts that the more-experienced cultivators were firing from their swords.

Anakin jumped over one of the blasts and looked at Ria, who cancelled out a second one with her stolen sword. “What are these things?”

Her forehead was tight with strain and her mouth was locked in a hard frown. “I think these are sword glares. They can only be created by first-class spiritual weapons.”

“That explains why the Lan Sect made such a big deal about everyone’s swords being taken.”

“You’d bitch if someone stole your lightsaber.”

“The kyber crystal is attuned-”

“So are the swords.”

Anakin frowned and pushed the Force through his sword to counter a sword glare coming at his shoulder. “Is it something in the metal, then? Is that why there are so many Force users here?”

“Less talking, more fighting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I really hate writing fight scenes.


	6. New Tech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sect Leader Jiang may be the one asking questions, but he's not the one they have to convince.

The battle lasted most of the night. The tide only really turned in the Jiang Sect’s favor when their leader returned on a boat around midnight. The last of the Wen soldiers surrendered or ran when a member of the Lan sect appeared with the predawn light, sending powerful blasts of Force from a seven-stringed, horizontal instrument. Anakin found Ria puking bile into one of the buckets previously used to put out the fires. He knelt down and put his hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

“No, I have severe brain damage.”

“Ria.”

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and stood. “Just exhausted.”

“You two.” Jiang Cheng approached them. His purple robes were splattered with blood, but most of it looked to be from others. He favored his left leg, but however much it hurt, it wasn’t enough to touch the exhaustion on his face. “Mother’s putting you in one of the guest rooms. If you try to leave, she will hunt you down.”

“That’s fine,” Anakin said. “We haven’t rested or eaten since we left Gusu. I’m Anakin Skywalker and this is Ria.” He held out his hand to shake and then awkwardly dropped it when he remembered they didn’t  _ do _ that here. He put his arms in a loose loop and bowed. “We’re from the Coruscant Jedi Sect.”

“Jiang Cheng, courtesy name Wanyin.” He sketched out an equally weak bow. “That idiot that was with me, wherever he is, is Wei Wuxian.” He gave Ria an obvious once over. “Do you need a healer?”

Ria winced. “No, thank you. Just- Tea? Water? Food?” She fanned her face with her right hand. “Forget it. Your kitchens are probably destroyed. Everyone’s knackered. It’s fine.”

Anakin put a gentle hand on her back and nodded to Jiang Cheng. “Just some drinking water. Shijie has an old head injury that’s acting up.”

“There should be sealed jugs in the guest rooms. By the time you wake up, there should be plenty of food from the city. The men that came with Father are still fresh enough and I’m sure Second Young Master Lan would rather set himself on fire than rest when there’s work to be done.” Jiang Cheng’s eyes rolled so hard he looked possessed for a moment.

Anakin rewarded the effort with a tired chuckle. “Not a fan of his, I take it?”

“Wei Wuxian is obsessed with him. I’d throw them both off the pier, but sadly they can swim.”

The first guest room had a hole in the ceiling, but Ria stumbled in and landed face-first on one of the beds before Jiang Cheng could find them another one. Anakin gave him a weary smile. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve had worse.”

“Alright. Someone will wake you up in a few hours.” Jiang Cheng waved vaguely and then… just stood there, in the doorway. He wasn’t even looking at them, just staring at a wall and listing slightly to one side. Anakin nudged him with a touch of Force and he startled, realized where he was and dragged his feet away.

Anakin very clearly remembered struggling with the laces on his boots, but the next thing he knew it was hours later, midafternoon sun streaming through the large window. Ria was sprawled indelicately on the floor, sipping water from a tiny cup and brushing out her long, black hair. She’d gotten a bath at some point and was wearing the muted-purple robes worn by the Jiang disciples. She noticed his gaze and jerked her chin at a neatly-folded pile of robes.

“They left those for you.”

“Where’s the refresher?”

She yawned, only covering it half-way with the hairbrush. “Go out, turn left and there’s a bath house at the edge of the estate. There’s a bunch of heating talismans on one of the shelves if the water’s cold.”

“How do I use them?”

“Uhh…” She frowned. “You just kinda push Force into the writing.” She separated out a section of hair from the crown of her head and started braiding, holding one of the strands with the Force. “Oh they’re not written in blood. It’s ink made from cinnabar.”

“Blood. Really?”

“That’s how most Sith sorcery works.”

“You thought they were using blood rituals to get hot water?”

“Yeah? I was disgusting. It would’ve been worth it to get clean.”

Anakin snorted in amusement and then picked up the robes. The room they’d slept in wasn’t too far from the bath house, but the short walk was enough to clear the rest of the sleep from Anakin’s mind. A young disciple, no more than ten, was doodling on a piece of paper when he entered. His duty was to refill the water and soap, hand out towels and keep the rows of talismans stacked and dry. He took his job as bath attendant very seriously and walked Anakin through the proper process, which was mostly unnecessary, but appreciated. 

By the time Anakin returned to their room, there was a tray of food and a tea setting. Ria was eating with both hands, but used the Force to continue braiding her hair with invisible tendrils.

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just do the whole thing with the Force?”

“It ends up lumpy without the tactile feedback.”

“Fair enough.” 

Anakin struggled once again with the chopsticks, but once her hair was finished, Ria leaned over and showed him how to hold them properly. 

“And hold the bowl up to your face.”

“I just want a fork.”

“Children can do this, you know.”

“And some children can breathe underwater. What’s your point?”

“Are you seriously comparing this to having gills? Just use the Force to cheat if it’s so hard.” She set down her empty bowl and pushed back from the table. She leaned against the bed and yawned. “Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang will send for us, soon. Apparently, this attack was much worse than what happened to Cloud Recesses. There’s talk of full-scale war.”

“So this warrants a war, but not  _ burning down _ Cloud Recesses didn’t?”

“It’s a nobles’ war. I was questioning one of the older disciples; apparently, they more or less tried to imprison the gentry, whereas the attack on Lotus Pier was meant to kill.” Ria looked out through the hole in the ceiling. “The guy I talked to didn’t have a great opinion of Xichen’s father. He  _ strongly _ implied it was his own fault he died and you have to kriff up something serious to be blamed for your own death when your house is burned down.”

There was a polite knock on the door before it slid open. “The master will see you now. Please come with me.”

Anakin finished his tea and then stood. The boots he’d been given felt strange, but were close enough to his size that they weren’t too uncomfortable. All around Lotus Pier, repairs were in process. Many sections had already been refitted with replacements and were being painted by workers from the nearby town. It always surprised Anakin how quickly regular people could build when they were motivated and taken care of.

Inside the main hall, Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang shared the throne at the head of the room. While the throne wasn’t particularly wide, they were very intentionally not sitting close enough to touch. To the sect leader’s right sat Jiang Cheng with Wei Wuxian behind him. To his right was the Lan Sect disciple with a stone-faced expression. After giving their greetings, Anakin and Ria were instructed to sit, Ria taking the seat closer to the throne, since she’d claimed to be his elder.

Sect Leader Jiang leaned forward. He had a kind face and mild disposition. He held strong resemblance with his son, but there were deep laugh-lines on his face. He said, “Let us get right to business. While many cultivators have a talent for being where the chaos is, your appearance yesterday was quite unusual. Doubly so given that no one has heard of you  _ or _ the place from which you hail.”

“As we informed Sect Leader Lan, we sailed very far to arrive here. Our ship is near Gusu. We didn’t plan to land here. We didn’t even know this land  _ existed _ until we stumbled upon it.”

Anakin nodded his agreement and then spoke. “Our people are in the middle of a war ourselves. We were scouting when our ship was attacked. Thanks to our… proprietary techniques, we were able to contact my master; however, we will be unable to return home for some weeks while he travels here.”

“You’re stranded,” the Lan Disciple said, completely and unnaturally without inflection.

Ria nodded. “That’s the short of it. We must remain here and the tenets of our Sect dictate that we provide whatever aid we are able during conflicts.”

Sect Leader Jiang pressed the tips of his fingers together. “How do you decide who to support in a conflict such as this? You helped us defend when the Wen Sect attacked, but when we bring the fight to them, will you change sides?”

Anakin exchanged a glance with Ria. The real answer was that they had to follow their consciences and act for greater peace, but Sect Leader Jiang clearly wanted something more solid than that. Eventually, Ria tilted her head in a way that said ‘just go with it.’ He nodded.

“Justice is blind. Peace is not. Between what we witnessed here and what we learned from the Lan Sect,” she nodded to the Lan disciple, “it is clear that the Wen Sect desires to control all of this region. For peace, there must be a balance of power and it is clear they do not wish for balance.” Ria gestured around herself, meaning all of Lotus Pier. “The vigor with which the normal people surrounding Lotus Pier are rebuilding the facilities here shows that you and your people are in balance and at peace with them. I suspect we would not find the same within Qishan.”

Ria took a deep breath and looked directly at Madam Yu. “In terms of ideals and beliefs, it could be said that we should fight until the Wen Sect had returned to its own borders and entered a balance with its people. But ideals do not bandage wounds or feed the hungry. We will fight the Wen Sect until they cannot even begin to dream of conquest.”

The very corner of Madam Yu’s mouth turned up. She was as approving of Ria’s viciousness as Anakin was unsettled by it. He was only mostly sure Ria was playing a part. The more she talked about the Order and its past, the less confident he was in her goodness.

Sect Leader Jiang nodded to her and dropped his hands. “Very well. In that case, we will be grateful for your assistance. Both last night and in the future. My lady informed me that you lack proper spiritual tools.”

Ria bowed her head. “We were instructed to leave them behind for plausible deniability on our scouting mission. They are unavailable to us, but even if they were, they are not suitable for combat of this type.”

Anakin didn’t miss the intentional jab at him, but he managed to keep his expression clear. She was cleverly dancing on the edge of truth. The way Wei Wuxian fidgeted and rubbed his nose as he stared at her suggested that he might be able to hear between her words, but his expression was more intrigued than wary.

“As gratitude for your help, I will have my blacksmith forge something suitable.”

Ria lowered her head further. “Sect Leader Jiang is too generous.”

He chuckled with a fondness limited to parents and old masters. “Inferior weapons are a danger to allies as well as enemies.”

“Then we can only accept with humility.” Without looking up, she moved away from her table and dropped into a full kowtow. Since no one looked at Anakin, he was reasonably sure he didn’t have to join her. Once again, he felt a deep stab of appreciation that she’d take the initiative.

But it couldn’t be that easy. Once Ria had returned to her seat, Madam Yu leaned forward with narrow eyes. “One more thing. Last night I witnessed you compel a sword to forget its master. Is that technique also proprietary?”

Ria didn’t flinch physically, but Life Force reacted so violently that Anakin could feel it. She met Madam Yu’s gaze head-on. “Certainly not. The weapon’s loyalty was weak.” She lifted the sword from the floor next to her and drew the blade two inches, showing both it and the scabbard to Madam Yu. “Such a thing lacked even a name. It cannot have been expected to respect a master that did not treat it in kind.”

That wasn’t an answer, as far as Anakin could tell, but everyone else in the room seemed happy with it. It was possible Ria read Madam Yu’s mind to pick up hints of what to say, but she could have also grilled one of the disciples about spiritual tools while he was asleep or in the bath.

“Of course,” Madam Yu said, her voice dripping danger. “I may have you examine some… stubborn artifacts the sect has acquired over the years and have you teach me that technique.”

Ria bowed her head in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience yesterday, I had a migraine! 🙏🙏 I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please leave a comment!
> 
> This chapter is edging into some of the weirder elements of Force theory. WWX and the narration will go into most of the complex issues later, but you're welcome to ask questions in the comments or via social media.
> 
> All else I'll note here is this: the sword Ria took over indeed had no name or personal ornamentation by its previous owner. It was NOT a first-class spiritual tool, just one wielded more skillfully than the average mook sword. Remember when Su She lost his sword to the Waterborne Abyss bc he wasn't attuned to it well enough? Around that level. 👍


	7. Spiritual Guidance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jedi, it turns out, are really bad at naming things. JC is not impressed and might just punch out WWX next time he mentions Suibian.

Sect Leader Jiang invited them for breakfast the next morning. Jiang Cheng joined them, but no one else. Anakin still struggled to eat with chopsticks, but neither of them were rude enough to comment on it. After the first cup of tea, Sect Leader Jiang leaned his elbows onto the small, round table.

“Please pardon A-xian. He may sleep in late, but he is a talented cultivator.”

“He’s lazy,” Jiang Cheng said. He grabbed his food with more force than necessary.

Sect Leader Jiang clapped his hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, but changed the subject. “I asked you both to join me because it is important that the smith know what names you’ve chosen for your weapons.”

“They’re not just weapons,” Jiang Cheng said. “They’re important spirits that work with us and should be regarded as such. Don’t name them frivolously.”

That was a jab if Anakin ever heard one. He would bet good credits that Wei Wuxian had named his sword something foolish.

Jiang Cheng put his sword on the table. The scabbard was a rich, royal purple with meticulously shaped accents, most in the form of snakes. “This is Sandu.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes at the sword. Sandu was said like a name -- as a name -- so he didn’t immediately translate it back into Basic. However, something tickled the back of his mind. The first translation that came to mind was the Three Poisons was a Jedi concept. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember. Master Qui-Gon Jinn had taught him that during their brief time together.

“Ignorance, attachment, aversion.”

Ria clapped dramatically and then threw back her head in peals of too-loud laughter. “So you fucking learned something after all!”

“Ria!” Anakin switched to speaking in Basic. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s funny and you’re being rude,” she said in the local language.

“How does the Order have the  _ same concept _ phrased  _ identically _ despite this being a completely unknown world? Do you have any idea what this means?” he continued, heedless of the awkward stares from the other side of the table. 

“Yes. First, you’re an idiot. Second, these people are human and therefore this world was known to, at least, the Rakata and probably Czerka. Third, humans have created the same handfuls of schools of philosophies over and over across the galaxy. Human brains are five pounds of meat that think a chair covered in clothes is a ghost in the middle of the night. There are only so many neuron and electrical pulse combinations and plenty of people that want to think they’re clever.”

After her rant, Ria bowed her head over the table and switched back to the local language again. “Please excuse me  _ shidi.  _ He was simply surprised that people might have come to the same conclusions as our ancient masters. We, too, have the concept of the Three Poisons.”

Sect Leader Jiang waved her apologies away. “It’s nothing. It is gratifying to know your people have similar beliefs.”

“Your sword is well-named, Jiang Wanyin.” She nodded her head to him politely. “Please pardon our… ignorance, I suppose. You see, we learned your language through a cultivation technique. As such… Naming conventions are difficult. What we would call my ‘courtesy name’ is Rhianon and his is Anakin Skywalker, neither of which are particularly… pronounceable or meaningful in your language. Which is to say, we may require assistance for the proper naming of things.”

Sect Leader Jiang held his chin as he considered her words. “I am glad you understand the significance of this, however, it is proper that your sword be a name that you resonate with. A-xian came up with lists and lists of names and none suited who he is.”

Jiang Cheng groaned and covered his face with both hands. “Father, he’s not here. There’s no need to defend him.”

“A-cheng, I mean it only to say that what seems appropriate for them may seem odd to us, but spiritual tools are a part of us. Zidian is named for its effects and none would call the name unsuitable.”

The fight drained out of Jiang Cheng and he settled for turning away to look out over the water.

After several minutes of eating in silence, Ria straightened. “I have considered Can Lian. Can because my mother’s name translates to gemstone and lian for the crushing inevitability when faced.”

With a smile, Sect Leader Jiang wrote the two characters down on a piece of paper, showing Ria so she could confirm they were the ones she meant. “I believe it suits you, Ria-guniang.”

Anakin gave up on food twenty minutes before and was scratching his head as he tried to think. He didn’t think in specific, exact words so much as concepts and pictures, so trying to pin down a specific name in their mind-numbingly complicated writing system was giving him a headache. “Uh...Yi Hao?” Then he stumbled over how to explain which characters he meant. Those were just the only words he had for those concepts.

But then Sect Leader Jiang took pity on him and wrote out a handful of characters for each word. He leaned over to Jiang Cheng and asked his opinion, slipping in several completely foreign words that must have been part of the local dialect. The father-son duo eventually settled on a combination that  _ wasn’t _ what Anakin had had in mind, but was significantly better, so he said that was it.

Madam Yu appeared as they were stacking up the shallow bowls to return to the kitchens. Without a word, she gestured for Ria to follow her. Anakin wasn’t particularly concerned by Obi-wan’s order to keep her in sight, but he was slightly worried about what would happen if Ria ran her mouth at Madam Yu. Not that Ria was reckless or defenseless, but… He cared. They were friends.

Madam Yu led them to an ornate sitting room. Yinzhu and Jinzhu stood silently in the corners of the room. A low table was set with a tea setting and several objects that radiated Force. After Madam Yu sat, Ria took the seat to her right and Anakin sat on Ria’s right. Ria poured tea for Madam Yu and then gestured for Anakin to pour tea for her.

This pleased Madam Yu, who gave her half a smile. “Thank you for joining me.”

“Of course, Madam Yu.”

“During the attack, Core-melting Hand used his technique on your  _ shidi, _ but he was unaffected. Neither of you has a golden core, yet you are clearly powerful cultivators. Explain.”

Ria bowed her head in consideration. She took a sip of tea before answering. “Many cultivation techniques rely not on raw power, but instead on the intention to and belief that the technique will be successful. Much of the population here is spiritually sensitive. The definition of what makes one a cultivator is formation of a golden core, not spiritual sensitivity. For us, spiritual sensitivity is far more rare and having it at all makes one a cultivator. Where you have the five great sects, we would have only five cultivators total.”

“Your people have such weakness?” Madam Yu’s eyebrow disappeared up under her hair. 

“We lack belief,” Ria said. “We worship no gods and honor no ancestors.” She gestured to Anakin’s short hair. “Where there is no belief, there is no spiritual energy. Therefore, in order for our sensitivity to be noticed, it must be rather acute. In this place, the spiritual energy is thick enough in the air to drown. My understanding of your practices is that you must cultivate your cores: collecting spiritual energy and attuning it to your own energy until they are one in the same.” She held her hand over her abdomen. “The golden core is like a vessel inside you, holding energy you can expend for whatever ends and refilling over time.”

Madam Yu nodded. “That is more or less correct, yes.”

“In contrast, our bodies hold only the spiritual energy we need to live. To perform techniques, we draw spiritual energy as needed from our environments.” Ria reached into her sleeve and pulled out a fist-sized rock and a plucked lotus blossom. She held one in each hand. “Spiritual energy is in all living things. To be a cultivator among our people, you must be able to harness it.” Madam Yu and Anakin watched with rapt attention as the rock began to crumble. At the same time, the lotus blossom withered as its Life Force was drained. When it was only a dry husk, she placed it and the rock dust on the table.

“In most cases, there is enough ambient spiritual energy that we need not drain life directly. For our people, to drain life from another person is heretical and the greatest sin. Spiritual power taken in such a way is what you call resentful energy.”

With that sentence, everything Ria had said about resentful energy and Sith corruption in Gusu clicked into place. It made so much more sense than what Obi-wan had tried to teach him. Jedi good and Sith evil was all but meaningless when the galaxy was all shades of grey, but this, this wilted flower, he could understand with painful clarity.

“If you would excuse my candor, I would guess from its manifestation that Zidian draws not from your core, but instead from your sharper, more dangerous emotions such as rage and spite.”

The bottom of Anakin’s stomach dropped at Madam Yu’s impressed nod. The Zidian really was just an altered manifestation of Force lightning. But she wasn’t  _ evil; _ she had just used the weapon to protect her family. His certainly in the way of things was slowly crumbling, but he couldn’t fool himself that Ria was wrong.

Ria continued. “Zidian is wielded by resentful energy, but since it is  _ your _ spiritual energy tainted with your  _ own _ resentment, you suffer no mental or spiritual deterioration, as seen with other uses of resentful energy.”

“Your shidi was correct when he said you were more educated in theory. Few outside of Meishan appreciate the nuance of our cultivation methods.”

Ria lowered her head modestly. She touched the visible edge of her scar. “Due to severe injury, I was unable to practice physically for many years. I spent my time in study.”

“I will take advantage of your specialty.” Madam Yu fingered the objects on the table, eventually picking up a short flute, maybe fifteen centimeters in length, at most. She held it up to her mouth and blew, but no sound came from the instrument. She offered it to Ria. “This was recovered some time ago; it was crafted by a traitor to the Lan Sect.”

Ria turned it over in her hands. She peered through the holes and ran the Force up and down the length of it. She held it up to her mouth and closed her eyes, but did not blow. Anakin closed his eyes to better Sense what she was doing. His mind interpreted the input from his Force Sense as scattered pieces of a puzzle. Ria quickly arranged them: first into one picture and then into a second one. The pieces blurred with the speed of her movements. Finally, she stopped, opened her eyes and lowered the flute. 

“It was designed for healing. Correct melodies would speed the knitting of bones or negate the effects of a curse. Mistakes would heal the target, but at the expense of the castor. As a guess, I would say it was deemed too dangerous and sealed to prevent self-harm.”

“Can you unseal it?”

Ria shook her head. “The seal was made from the foundation technique used to make this a spiritual object. Removing it would render the object inert. A normal instrument.”

Madam Yu frowned as she took the flute back. “Pity. It was a clever device.”

Ria lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “A scalpel is still a knife. Heretically, it could have been used to sap the life of victims and empower the user.”

“I do, truly, enjoy the way your mind works.”

Anakin shivered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🙏 I hope you enjoyed Ria's explanation of Force vs Cultivation. Please comment and let me know what you think!
> 
> Ria's sword will be named Can Lian 璨濂 (gem waterfall) and Anakin's is Yi Hao 毅豪 (chivalrous perseverance). Please excuse any cultural/language strangeness. Like these two idiots, I'm just doing my best with the resources available. Please be like JFM and accept that as Foreigners, it suits them if the names are linguistically awkward.


	8. What is White?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At which point are even the lesser evils too much to bear? Anakin is quickly finding he doesn't know.

Anakin left the meeting with Madam Yu after the second object: a necklace with different spells held in each of the gems on the chain. Between Ria’s extensive knowledge from the Jedi Archives and her acute Force Sensitivity, she figured out maybe five of them before Anakin felt faint from how even the most basic thing could be turned to murder. Madam Yu was too pleased with Ria’s progress to even be annoyed when he asked to leave. It was for the best.

He wandered around the cultivator estate mindlessly. Most of the repairs had been completed. The training yard was full of uninjured disciples going through their sword forms. Anakin didn’t recognize the set, but he was really only familiar with shien and shii-cho. He knew Ahsoka used juyo, but aside from using two sabers he was more or less at a loss.

He followed a long boardwalk at the end of which he found the Lan disciple who, up close, looked nearly identical to Xichen. It wasn’t just the lack of mild pleasantry that differentiated them, but Anakin couldn’t put his finger on what it was. The sharpness of the cheekbones? The set of their jaws? He set it aside and bowed, introducing himself in the local fashion.

“I am Lan Zhan, courtesy name Wangji.” He bent his back just as much as politeness dictated and no further. “You met my brother at Cloud Recesses.” Even the form of the word brother he used was exceedingly formal.

“Your sect treated us very well, despite the circumstances.” When he didn’t get more than a wordless affirmation, Anakin said, “You arrived here rather quickly, yourself. Were you already planning to visit?”

There it was, just the slightest reaction - a tightening of the eyes when Wangji didn’t even turn to face Anakin straight on. If he hadn’t been training against so many politicians, Anakin would have missed it entirely.

“Young Master Jiang assisted me in the past.”

“Of course. I’m not looking forward to the debts I’ll owe Ria when we get back.”

Expression unchanging, Wangji said, “Duty does not incur debt within one’s sect.”

Anakin grimaced. “Yeah. She’s not overly concerned with duty. This is something else.”

“Mn.”

Something about that response tickled the back of his mind. The entire exchange felt far too familiar. The Jiang disciples had called the Lan sect paragons of virtue with none more virtuous than Second Young Master Lan Wangji, but there was something… Something a little to the left. A little skewed. Realization hit him like a punch to the gut. Though far more talkative, Master Obi-wan was _also_ seen as a paragon of his order and yet there was whatever there was with Duchess Kryze.

Before he could muse too deeply on that, Anakin felt a blip of disturbance in the Force and then heard shouting in the distance. Wangji’s eyebrows furrowed and he strode with even steps toward the excitement. Anakin followed a step behind. It wasn’t his place to interfere with anything, but he was something of an official guest now, so it would be rude not to ascertain that his hosts were fine.

The commotion took place on the outer docks, outside of the Lotus Pier estate proper. A small boat was pulled up against the dock and Wei Wuxian stood defiantly in front of it while Jiang Cheng and several other Jiang disciples yelled and held tight hands on the hilts of their swords. Wangji stepped up at the same even pace, stopping at the edge of the crowd. He stared pointedly at Jiang Cheng.

“This is none of your concern, Second Master Lan,” Jiang Cheng said with scorn heavy in his voice. “This is a Jiang Clan matter.”

Anakin jogged around the group to the other side of the dock. From that vantage point, he was able to see the person in the boat: a terrified, young Wen disciple. He cowered, weaponless, behind Wei Wuxian. Anakin sent a tendril of Force to the young man and unless he was secretly more powerful than even Madam Yu, the young man was just as terrified and harmless as he appeared. 

“He’s telling the truth!” Wei Wuxian said. “You all saw at the cultivation conference! Wen Chao can’t have less respect for him! Why would he show up two days after the attack if not to try to help?”

“It doesn’t matter! He’s a Wen! Maybe he thought he could swoops in and succeed where Wen Chao failed!”

“Alone? Are you even listening to yourself?”

“I-I’m from a branch family. We’re doctors. We don’t hurt anyone. I-I owed Master Wei a debt. I wanted to help.”

Jiang Cheng grabbed a sword from one of the other disciples and pointed it at Wei Wuxian, who didn’t so much as blink. “Is this who you are now? You’ll protect the people who attacked us, your family?”

“Wei Ying is who he has always been,” Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng turned the sword on him, at which point Wei Wuxian lunged forward and wrestled it away from him.

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Lan Zhan is right! I will always do the righteous thing and protect the innocent!”

“No Wen is innocent!”

Anakin met Wangji’s eyes and then pushed through the crowd to put a hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. “It would be best if we brought the young man to Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang. If he is a doctor, he may be of use during the war against the Wen Sect.”

“And let him poison our wounded?”

“A political prisoner to be traded.”

Darkness crossed Jiang Cheng’s face and he jerked away from Anakin. He snarled. “Second Master Lan, take this Wen to the main hall to wait for my parents. Surely he won’t be able to escape someone of your cultivation level.”

Wei Wuxian helped the young man out of the boat, but didn’t immediately pass him to Wangji. He held his shoulders and said, “Uncle Jiang won’t let anyone hurt you. Madam Yu is… But she’s not unreasonable. I’ll-”

“It’s okay, Master Wei. I knew there were risks. Our principles state that we have to repay our debts.” He smiled, but it was tainted with fear.

Anakin put his hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “Madam Yu is nothing if not a proper noble. She won’t do anything with so many guests here. And if not… Ria and I will be compelled to intervene.”

“Thank you. If- If something did happen to Wen Ning, I know Jiang Cheng would regret it later. He’s mad now, of course he is, but he’s a good man. You have to believe me.”

“I do. I… Understand what it’s like, to be angry like this.”

“What if we have to fight Madam Yu?”

Anakin squeezed Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “You won’t have to. Ria and I will do it and take responsibility if it comes to that. This is your family. You shouldn’t have to choose.”

“Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian was silent for the rest of the walk to the main hall. The other Jiang disciples dispersed, leaving only Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian, Wangji and Anakin standing, with Wen Ning kneeling, hands tied behind his back in Wangji’s enchanted rope. Eventually, Sect Leader Jiang entered the main hall. While his voice was low and calm, his expression was severe as he questioned Wen Ning. 

HIs courtesy name was Wen Qionglin, he had only an older sister in his immediate family and they were a distant branch of the Wen Clan. Their branch had been ignored until his sister became an adult and Wen Ruohan discovered his sister’s, Wen Qing’s, medical expertise. At Sect Leader Jiang’s prompting, Wangji details Wen Qing’s reputation in the cultivation world and he equates her status to that of his brother, Sect Leader Lan Xichen.

Sect Leader Jiang was still thinking silently when Madam Yu entered with Ria, Yinzhu and Jinzhu. Someone must have already informed her of the situation, since she doesn’t ask what’s going on. Instead, she turns to Ria with a fond expression. “That technique, can you use it on this one?”

Ria closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Yes. His cultivation is rather low.” At Madam Yu’s gesture, Ria stepped forward and knelt in front of Wen Ning and waved her hand. “Speak the truth.”

Anakin nodded to himself. Of course, under the effects of a Jedi Mindtrick, Wen Ning would have to do what she wanted, even if that was only to speak the truth.

Ria moved out of the way and Madam Yu took her seat on the throne next to Sect Leader Jiang. Her questions were similar to husband’s, but she seemed disappointed by how weak and harmless Wen Ning was. By the end of the interrogation, her expression leaned on offended.

“If Wen Ruohan wants me to execute his pathetic cousin, he has another thing coming.” She clapped her hands. “Wen Qionglin, for now, you will remain in the Jiang healing rooms, caring for our wounded. Once Ria’s sword is complete, you will join her in the Unclean Realm assisting Sect Leader Nie however he so chooses. Red Blade Master will be leading the allied forces against your sect. Your beloved cousin,” Wen Ning flinched, “killed his father. He will treat you as righteousness demands.

“A-cheng, Wei Wuxian, you two will take the Jiang Disciples to Qinghe. Don’t disappoint me this time.” Madam Yu stood and gestured to Ria. “Take him to our healers and ensure he doesn’t act out. Once I receive word from Red Blade Master, I will ensure his ever-so-respected sister knows where he is.”

Ria bowed. “Of course, Madam Yu.” She gestured sharply for Wen Ning to follow her, but Anakin could feel the wave of calming Force she pressed against the boy. He stumbled only twice on the way out.

Madam Yu leaves for her own sitting room next, without so much as acknowledging her husband, Second Young Master Lan or Anakin. He supposed that was better than getting sharply pointed orders and veiled insults. He copied Wei Wuxian’s relieved sigh.

Wangji turned to Anakin. “What technique was that?”

Anakin rubbed the back of his neck. The Jedi Mindtrick was… less than morally upstanding, but they’d all just witnessed it, so he had no choice. “It is… A proprietary technique that allows the castor to overwhelm the will of the target. As much as Wen Qionglin might have wanted to lie, while under the effects of the technique, he was unable to. The empty monotone with which he responded is a symptom of the technique.”

“Controlling others is not orthodox,” Wangji said.

Anakin squeezed the tense muscles in the back of his neck. “It’s not the… kindest technique, no… But we can all agree it’s preferable to torture or any other means of information gathering.”

Aside from Wangji, whose expression remained blank, everyone else looked mildly to severely uneasy. Anakin couldn’t blame them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a couple of things.
> 
> 1) Why is it Wangji and Xichen, but Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian?  
> A) Anakin was still getting used to the language when he met Xichen, so he doesn't think of the man's name as including his surname, and since Wangji is Xichen's brother, that carries over. Meanwhile, when he met JC and WWX, he had adapted a little more.
> 
> 2) What are shii-cho, shien and juyo?  
> A) These are star wars lightsaber arts. Juyo uses two blades. Does it make sense that Ahsoka uses a saber art Anakin doesn't know? No. Ask the canon writers, not me.
> 
> 3) [ I designed Ria's sword 璨濂 Can Lian and you can check it out via this link!](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/post/621462707561971712/tk-duveraun-i-drew-rias-sword-%E7%92%A8%E6%BF%82-can-lian)
> 
> If you enjoy this fic, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. 🙏🙏


	9. Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wen Ning is babie. Everyone's mad at Anakin. He proceeds to have a crisis.

Wei Wuxian’s brilliant idea for lightening the mood was to drag everyone around Lotus Pier, except by ‘everyone’ he meant only Wangji, with Anakin and Jiang Cheng loitering a few awkward steps behind them. But Jiang Cheng wasn’t focused on the strange tension in front of them. Instead, he was frowning at his hands, alternatively making fists.

“Do they hurt?” Anakin asked. 

“No, it’s…” Jiang Cheng dropped his fists to his sides. He looked off to the left there the water could just be seen beyond the vendors. “I hate the Wen Sect. They took us hostage. Left us to die in Dusk Creek Mountain. They kidnapped Sixth Shidi and tried to kill all of us.” He sniffed loudly. “I hate them so much, but I- I feel  _ sick _ about what Mother did. That kid is pathetic. And she just- your shijie just took over his mind.”

“We’re… In the middle of our own war right now. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s easy to hate groups, but individuals… It never gets any easier. If it does… That’s when you need to worry.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t look reassured by his words. “And she’s going to use him as bait to catch his sister.”

“Well… being a prisoner of this Red Blade Master is better than being killed in service to the Wen Sect, right?” Anakin rubbed the back of his neck. Just after making that comment, one of the vendors offered him some kind of wrapped, free food, since he was in Jiang disciple garb.

Jiang Cheng sighed and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know. Nie Huaisang was always talking about how scary his brother was, but Sect Leader Nie was always buying him new brushes and fans that he sent with those ‘scary’ letters, so I don’t know. Father always said that he’s incredibly righteous, but he blames his father’s death on the Wen Sect.”

“Is it… not certain?” Anakin was confused. With this level of technology, anything from an arrow wound to a badly stubbed toe could result in death, but even that would be fairly clear cut.”

“He died from qi deviation.” Jiang Cheng said, not at all answering the question.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You-” Jiang Cheng shook his head. “It means that his soul was so badly in conflict with itself that he lost his mind and then his body killed itself. All of his meridians were shattered.”

“That is the worst death I can imagine. How- What could even cause that?”

“It… happens to all strong Nie Sect members eventually. The stronger the cultivation, the quicker they deviate, but even then… His saber was sabotaged by Wen Ruohan. It fractured, triggering the qi deviation.”

“Why- How do they- Are they using the Dark- I mean, resentful energy?”

JIang Cheng shook his head again. “Definitely not. The Nie Sect would never use the heretic’s path. It’s because they cultivate with sabers.”

“...How does that make a difference?”

“I don’t know; it just does! The sword is the gentleman’s weapon.”

Anakin let it go with a sigh. He’d have to ask Ria about it later. He’d never heard of a death anything like qi deviation and plenty of Jedi used weapons besides swords. Technically, all of them did, since the closest modern weapon was a vibroblade. Was it because the air was so thick with Force here? But that couldn’t explain it, either, since they were so much stronger than the local Force users. Was it the formation of a golden core that caused the issues? But then why only the Nie Sect?

Then there was Ria. She’d said a lot of seditious things since they’d arrived, but using a Jedi Mindtrick was not just textbook, but  _ expected. _ Anakin couldn’t count the number of times Master Obi-wan used it. “Look, I- Don’t think too poorly of Ria.”

“Don’t think poorly of her? She just took control of that kid’s mind!”

“But it’s not- It’s just a normal technique. We use it all of the time.”

Jiang Cheng spun on him. Even Wei Wuxian and Wangji turned to stare at him. Jiang Cheng jabbed a finger into his chest. “What do you  _ mean _ you use it all of the time? You just walk around controlling people-”

“It gave us the information we needed and he’s not hurt-”

“Not hurt?” That came from Wei Wuxian. “No, of course, not. He’ll just never have the certainty that his mind is his own. Ever again.”

“It’s-”

“The heretic’s path should never be used. Not even against one’s enemies,” said Wangji.

Anakin felt like he was on trial. This was exactly what he imagined it would be like if the Jedi Council ever found out about Padme. The hard looks, the certainty that he was in the wrong, the guilt creeping up to choke him on his own vomit. He took a few calming breaths. “Where we’re from, most people never meet a single cultivator in their entire lives. Before I was taken, neither my mother nor I even knew cultivators  _ existed _ let alone had any idea of what they could do. People wake up from the Mindtrick and- and they think it was just some kind of hallucination or bad dream.”

Wei Wuxian lifted his chin. “And that makes it better?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. The point is, our sect has existed for more than three thousand years and before Ria and I got trapped here, I just did whatever my master told me and never questioned it. I  _ know _ it’s bad. I can see that now.” He swallowed. “I feel like I don’t know up from down anymore and it’s… terrifying.”

“Ah, ah, don’t start crying. Girls don’t like men who cry.” Wei Wuxian awkwardly patted his shoulder. “It’s okay. I get it. Old Man Lan kicked me out of tons of lectures just for questioning things. But this stuff, better to question it late than never, right?”

Jiang Cheng was less sympathetic, but he no longer looked on the verge of biting him or worse. Wangji turned away.

“Lan Zhan, don’t be like that. Isn’t that in the rules? Honor people who work to correct their errors?”

Wangji made a noncommittal noise, but Wei Weuxian took that as enthusiastic agreement. He elbowed Anakin. “See? It’ll be fine. Come on. Let’s go get something to eat, have a few drinks and talk of better things! Lotus Pier is safe and Sect Leader Jiang is positive the Four Great Sects will ally against the Wen.”

\---

Anakin returned to the guest room before Ria did. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were thoroughly drunk. Wangji had left with the sunset, claiming he would begin his journey back to Gusu. Anakin wished he’d gotten drunk with them instead of automatically cleansing his system with each drink. He couldn’t stop thinking about Wen Ning and the long term side effects of the Mindtrick. He was still chewing it like a nerf with a stubborn piece of grass when Ria stepped in, rubbing both temples.

“Still up?” Ria waved her hand and the candles in the lanterns all died at once. “The smith should deliver our swords in the morning, then it’s a long ride to Qinghe.”

“Ride?”

“Yeah, these weird, fragile, awful beasts called horses. Apparently, the primary mode of transit is  _ riding the sword _ wherein they just… step on their swords like cheap hoverboards. It sounds ridiculous.” She removed her outer robe and threw it up on the low screen, straightening the wrinkles with another wave of her hand. She yawned. “The doctors’ knowledge of the human body is actually quite extraordinary considering they have no imaging or germ theory.”

“Ria.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever considered… The morality of the Mindtrick?”

“Yeah? It’s extremely fucked up.” She threw herself on the bed and stretched out. “My master’s response was basically that if they lacked the mental defenses to protect against it, then they didn’t matter.”

“But you still used it.”

“Have you ever been tortured?”

“What? No.”

Ria nodded. It was easy to see her with the moon full outside the window. “Yeah, there you go. Force lightning, and by extension the Zidian, can literally rewire your brain. It’s not just nerve damage and tremors. You can lose the capacity to feel any happiness at all. Even better, your brain can take happiness signals and turn them into pain. If that boy was lucky, he was going to be killed. If he was unlucky, he was going to be grilled with the Zidian until he told them everything he knew about his sister and her activities as well as a ton of nonsense because torture is a terrible information-gathering method.”

And in that light, the Mindtrick was back to seeming like the best option. Anakin felt sick. “I was talking to Jiang Wanyin and the others earlier and-”

“It’ll only get harder from here, Anakin. There’re no clean hands in war.” Ria sighed. “Have you wondered why we don’t have any of these… spells and techniques they have? Elemental blasts, traps, wards, the whole rigamarole?”

“Well… The Order has some wards…”

“Do you know any?”

“Yes, okay, I have been wondering.”

“When the Order of Force users split between Dark and Light, there were roughly equal numbers on both sides. We had two armies with the same, shared knowledge pool and training. One side activates a fire talisman, the other activates a water one. At the end of the day, every battle ended up in lightsaber fights and collateral damage as far as the eye could see. Those who became the Jedi chose to perfect nullification techniques to limit the collateral damage and push fights directly to saber duels.”

Anakin stared up at the darkened ceiling. “So this is all just window dressing at the cost of innocent lives?”

“The Order calls the Force Choke ‘Dark,’ but if you can take out the enemy commander and leave everyone else alive to surrender, how could that possibly be worse?”

“Did you just spend those years in the Archives learning to hate the Order?”

“No one’s hands are clean,” Ria repeated. “I’d much rather see the blood on Madam Yu’s than look at my master’s white gloves and wonder.”

“How are we supposed to go back to the Clone Wars after this? How can I order people, people I  _ know, _ into battle knowing that they’re just window dressing until I find the next Ventress?”

“Why do you think the clones were made? Why weren’t they given names? Any protocol droid can pop out a list of five billion human names in a few minutes and you expect me to believe they were left with serial numbers for a practical reason? Soldiers aren’t supposed to be people, Anakin. We’re not supposed to care about them.”

Anakin rubbed his face and realized he was crying. “Why?” His voice broke on the question. “Why make them human if just to dehumanize them?”

Ria didn’t answer for a long time. The light in the room dimmed as the moon moved through the sky. When she finally spoke again, her own voice was rough with emotion. A far cry from the derisive sneer she usually used when speaking against the Order. “The only thing humans are better at than procreating is killing. No computer will ever be as optimised for war as a human brain. We’re just pawns. All of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dearly hope that your takeaway from this fic is not that I think Anakin is stupid. He's not. He's clever and empathetic. The problem is that he's too trusting and because of his past, he doesn't question things he should. He cares, he cares so deeply and he trusts. He trusts and doesn't want to question the actions, motives and teachings of people he trusts. If Obi-wan uses a technique, surely it's not bad? It can't be bad. Obi-wan saved him. Right?
> 
> Me: Has Anakin ever been tortured?  
> My Husband: ...what?
> 
> later
> 
> Me: Was Ventress always evil?  
> My Husband: Well, no-  
> Me: Right, but WHEN in the Clone Wars...  
> My Husband: The end-ish?  
> Me: Thought so.
> 
> later
> 
> My Husband: Isn't this an MDZS fic?  
> Me: This is my hate letter to the Jedi.
> 
> If there's anything in particular you want to see or to learn about, please comment and let me know :)


	10. Tensile Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids get their swords and prepare for a field trip to Qinghe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that the Lunar Module is called the LEM? The acronym became a part of the team because when it was first designed, it was called the Lunar Excursion Module.
> 
> But that sounded too much like the astronauts were going on a field trip. 
> 
> That's it.
> 
> I'm not going anywhere else with that.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Side note! I'd really appreciate it if you commented with what you find funny about the chapter, even if you think it's not intentionally funny. 
> 
> Cheers!

There wasn’t a formal ceremony for receiving one’s sword. At least, not when you were from a place no one had ever heard of and it was given as a reward for your help. Sect Leader Jiang gave Anakin his first. The weight was wholly different from a lightsaber, but the hilt took to his hand with the same sense of completion he’d felt the first time he held a lightsaber. The grip was braided, black leather surrounding a two-peaked mountain that stood in relief against the metal core. The pommel was a polished, black stone carved into the head of a beast he didn’t recognize: something like a nekkar without tusks.

Anakin ran two fingers over the textured metal of the crossguard. It had the look of untouched stone with a teardrop-shaped leaf pointing down the blade. The blade itself was pristine and straight with only the engraved name breaking up its perfect symmetry. The characters for  _ chivalrous _ and  _ perseverance  _ looked almost nothing like he saw them in his mind, but his vague understanding of the writing systems told him that a different script was typically used for objects like his sword. 

The scabbard was heavy and channeled the Force as well as the blade did. It was slate-grey with an entire mountain range down the side. A Jiang-purple tassel was fastened in a loop on the side. Anakin must have said something, praising the craftsmanship, giving thanks, because Sect Leader Jiang beamed at him and said it was nothing. Anakin swallowed his dry mouth and turned to watch as Madam Yu presented Ria with her sword.

As soon as her hands touched the scabbard, she collapsed in a dead faint. Anakin caught her first with the Force and then grabbed her out of the air, gently lowering her to the ground. Without a word, one of Jinzhu and Yinzhu disappeared, returning in the next moment with a Jiang doctor and Wen Ning. 

The Jiang doctor checked Ria’s pulse, listened to her breathing and carefully lifted each eyelid. He turned his hand palm-up and ran two fingers from her collarbones to naval without touching her robes. 

Wen Ning performed the same tests, then touched the scar on her forehead. He followed it back through her hair with gentle fingers before looking up at Anakin. “How old is this wound?”

“Uhh…” Anakin rubbed the back of his neck. He really had no idea. She was in the Archives for three years and had finished that before the Clone Wars began, so that was at least five years. She’s been brought to the Jedi at roughly twelve years old and was… maybe nineteen? “Seven? At least five. Is something wrong with it?”

The Jiang doctor copied Wen Ning’s appraisal of the scar. He nodded, frowning. “It’s flooded with spiritual energy, as if it’s a fresh wound. If she had a core, it would drain completely in less than an hour at this rate. What was-” He cut himself off and rolled Ria onto her side. Her nose was bleeding.

Wen Ning held a cloth to her face to catch the blood. 

The Jiang doctor stood and looked at Madam Yu. “Yinzhu reported that you gave her a spiritual tool?” At her nod, he continued. “It’s not  _ unusual _ for significant changes to one’s spiritual energy to trigger changes in the physical body, but since those are more common in children - at core formation or first receiving their sword - the changes are often attributed to puberty. Am I correct in supposing this injury is more than skin deep?”

Anakin nodded, significantly less worried, but not entirely calm.

“Then unless she starts bleeding from her ears or eyes, there should be nothing to worry about.”

“How soon will she be able to travel?” Madam Yu asked.

“You must understand, without a core, I cannot accurately judge her cultivation level. If she is roughly the strength of Young Master Jiang, this evening at the earliest. I know you intend to send her to Qinghe. I’ll write a letter for my Nie counterpart.” He bowed and excused himself and Wen Ning, who carried Ria as if she weighed nothing.

Actually, all of the cultivators seemed as strong as any Mandalorian in full armor. He blinked. Was that the true benefit of a golden core? It increased their base bodily functions? Or was it because their golden core overrode the human self-preservation instincts that kept them from pushing their bodies too hard? Anakin had seen a human throw a gamorrean across a cantina for making a threat against their small child and that human had certainly  _ not _ been a Force user. 

But that just made him think back to their conversation the night before, about being pawns, so he pushed it all away with a shiver. He knelt and picked up Ria’s sword. Canlian, she’d called it. The pommel was plain, burnished metal. The grip was textured and inset with six black, stone ovals, three on each side. The crossguard was a mosaic of green and blue jadeite in the shape of cresting waves. A nine-petal lotus was set in pale, purple-pink stone just at the butt of the blade. The scabbard was simple, painted with an unmistakable dip technique that Anakin ironically couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before. The only likeness between the two were the purple cord and tassel. 

Anakin looked for Madam Yu, but she’d already left, so he turned his gaze to Sect Leader Jiang. “Do you really think we should still leave today?”

Sect Leader Jiang sighed and sat down. He gestured for Anakin to sit across the table. “My lady is a complex woman. By no means does she believe men to be stronger than women, but she is eager for you and our boys to join the front while we rebuild. The letter going with A-cheng will have Red Blade Master sending the most badly wounded here, once they’re stable enough for travel. We’re closer to Qishan than Lanling, but there is still a chance Sect Leader Jin chooses not to join us in the fight. Despite his wealth, he-”

“It’s alright. I understand. There’s no need to speak ill of your peers.”

Sect Leader Jiang gave him a resigned smile. 

“The true point is, Madam Yu worries for Sect Leader Nie. He inherited too young and too tragically. She believes, and I agree, that it is entirely possible he goes into qi deviation before the Wen Sect is defeated. Your shijie, she knows so much cultivation theory, and so differently from how we see it. Our hope is that she will find the root cause of the deviation or at least find a more viable treatment than tying up the very best Lan Sect disciples.”

Anakin frowned and rested one arm on the table. “Jiang Wanyin said the Nie Sect cultivators experience qi deviation because they cultivate with sabers?”

“That is the primary theory, yes. However, the Meishan Yu developed Zidian and other unique weapons that carry no such side effect. As for the Yunmeng Jiang and other major sects, there is no way for us to investigate the problem.”

“What do you mean? Do they already have the best researchers?”

Sect Leader Jiang sighed and looked out over the water. “It ashames me to say, but it is a matter of pride. For one of our people to go to the Nie Sect and discover the issue, it would be a tacit announcement that our cultivation methods are superior and it is an intrinsic failure of the Nie Sect. To even ask to see their cultivation manuals would be a great insult.”

“Their people have been dying for generations and no one’s looked into it properly because it’s  _ rude? _ Is their pride worth more than their lives?”

“Other sects have fallen for less. Nie Mingjue was introduced to Lan Xichen at a young age. The hope of the cultivation world was that being such close friends would be able to combine the Lan Sect’s knowledge with the Nie’s for the betterment of both, but while their friendship bloomed, it has yet to produce the right fruit.”

“Ria’s going to be furious when she hears this.”

“She has a good spirit. May her fury encourage her work.”

Anakin mussed his hair and slumped on the table. “I’ll tell her on the way. If she feels like she’s being manipulated into helping instead of being asked plainly, she may decide to simply return to our ship and wait for my master to arrive.”

“A wise choice. I won’t hold you much longer, but there is one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“In my letter to Sect Leader Nie, I was particularly careful in how I phrased Ria’s control over Young Master Wen. I believe it is for the best if he misinterprets it to mean that she has constant, full control over his actions.” He held up a hand. “I am not asking you lie; simply not to correct any misinformation that assures him the boy is harmless. Nie Mingjue is a good boy, but he is still very young and still grieving his father. All he sees is a snake in the grass; he doesn’t see that it eats the pests that would destroy the crops.”

“I understand. My wife is a career politician and-”

“You’re married. Ah, congratulations. I’m sure she’s lovely.”

Anakin froze and then cursed in Basic. He covered his face with both hands. “Please don’t tell Ria. It’s not actually sanctioned by our Sect.”

Sect Leader Jiang laughed at him as only a married father could. Anakin wanted the pier to open up so he could drown.

\---

Anakin was at Ria’s side when she woke. He hadn’t expected anything in particular. Maybe confusion, but she was particularly quick on the uptake, so he wouldn’t have been surprised if she woke up knowing what happened to her. What he was not expecting was incandescent fury so potent the air crackled with Force lightning. A spark even cut open her own cheek, though it healed over almost immediately in the flood of crackling Force.

Eyes blazing and, mostly worryingly,  _ yellow, _ she snatched her sword off the side table and stalked out of the healing quarter. Anakin, Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian scrambled to follow her.

Jiang Cheng remained seated and said, simply, “If she kills you I’ll break your legs, Wei Wuxian.”

Ria made it out of the Lotus Pier estate and into the surrounding forest before stopping. She turned to Wei Wuxian with mechanical stiffness. “Where is your logging camp?”

He took her arm and led her at a jog through the trees. Once they reached the camp, she drew Canlian and slashed the blade horizontally. Three rows of trees, eight trees wide, fell with a synchronized crash of limbs. The cuts through the trunks were as clean as any lightsaber strike and lacked the charring.

“Back away,” Ria said through clenched teeth.

“Didn’t you just-”

Wei Wuxian grabbed Wen Ning and yanked him away.

In the same moment, Ria sheathed her sword and lifted her right palm to the sky. Though there were no clouds, a crackle of lightning dropped from the sky and consumed her with blinding light. When Anakin could see again, the ground around Ria was black and ruined with ashes and small chunks of glass from the silica in the dirt.

“Ria… You’re obviously not okay. What’s wrong? How can I help you?” Anakin approached her slowly, like she was a wild bantha. Or maybe a krayt dragon back from extinction.

She turned her face enough that he could see the fresh scar, but not enough that she could meet his eyes. “Do you have any idea what the Jedi did to me?”

“Uh, no?”

“The sword brought some of my memories back, Anakin. I was  _ awake _ during some of the surgeries. I had to be to ensure they didn’t cause more brain damage. They took my memories on purpose! My home, my  _ family, _ they took it all because ‘it would only hurt her to remember.’ ‘If she’s to be a proper Jedi, it’s easier this way.’ They took them from me!” She fell to her knees in the ashes and burst into tears. Her hands were bloodless where they clutched her robes.

While Anakin and Wen Ning could only watch in awkward pain, Wei Wuxian swooped down and took her in his arms. He hugged her with one arm and patted her hair with the other. “Ah, ah, it’s not okay. I know it’s not okay. But you’re good. Know that. You didn’t choose to forget. You didn’t betray them by not knowing.”

Emotion choked Anakin at that. His parents were dead, too, but at least he  _ remembered _ his mother. He’d done everything he could to save her and even though he’d failed, he’d  _ been there _ for her. Ria couldn’t even be there for her parents’ memory. He couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. He could barely fathom that was something to feel guilty about, but there Wei Wuxian was, putting out the fire before Anakin even realized there was smoke.

Wen Ning knelt carefully in the charred circle and gently pulled on Ria’s right arm until he could hold her hand, even as Wei Wuxian continued to speak reassurances into her hair. Her body shook with sobs and Anakin could only look on, completely powerless. What could he say? He was part of the Order that wronged her. For all he knew, it had been a Council decision. Had Master Obi-wan been consulted?

If he’d been asked, would he have agreed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to comment on what you thought was funny :)
> 
> Thanks!


	11. Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The food for thought tastes like ashes.

Horses were at least twice as awful as Ria made them out to be. They were frightfully stupid and stupidly easy to frighten. A single, unlucky branch hanging across the road would cause the horrible animal to startle and attempt to run off into the tangled underbrush that would break its legs. And apparently they were so fragile that a broken leg was a death sentence. They were so awful that part of their tack was specifically designed to decrease their vision to minimize startling.

Ria didn’t speak at all on the first day of their ride to Qinghe. Given the frown that seemed permanently embedded in her face, she was thinking about how much she hated what had been done to her and how she would get revenge. 

Wei Wuxian spent his time cycling between her and Jiang Cheng, who was as loud as Ria was silent. Apparently, Wei Wuxian had filled at least one  _ qikun _ pouch in his sleeves with snacks and trinkets to present, or throw, at them along the journey. He regaled Ria with stories of his time at the Lan Sect lectures with Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang, who was the heir to and younger brother of Sect Leader Nie. 

From the sounds of it, Wei Wuxian was worse than Anakin and Ahsoka put together in terms of mischievous rule-breaking. Not that any of them broke rules for the purpose of breaking rules, but sometimes… Well, sometimes things needed to be done.

Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng rode on either side of Ria when the road was wide enough to keep silent guard over her and her raw emotions. It was really touching how quickly they’d attached themselves to her after her breakdown. Anakin was triply thankful that Wen Ning didn’t seem unduly, if at all, bothered by the Mindtrick. Anakin hadn’t said a word about Sect Leader Jiang’s instructions, but Wen Ning was hardly going to speak against himself and the others seemed convinced of his harmlessness.

The first night, they camped in a thick copse of trees off the road. Wei Wuxian got into a fight with Jiang Cheng over how to make their fire smokeless. They wrestled and made a complete mess of each other while making enough noise to scare away any possible game for dinner. When the fight degenerated into hair-pulling, Wen Ning silently arranged the wood and lit the fire with a complicated wave of his right hand.

Ria laughed, loud and brittle, but it was better than her silent sulking. Once the other two stopped fighting and everyone was seated around the campfire, Ria relayed a watch schedule in a tone that left no room for argument. Wei Wuxian then spent twenty minutes teaching Anakin and Wen Ning how to make a talisman for seeing in the dark. 

The second day went slightly better. Ria interrogated Wei Wuxian on cultivation theory. Jiang Cheng would sometimes elaborate on the answers or flat-out say his adopted brother was wrong. Very little of the conversation made any sense to Anakin. He wasn’t stupid and he’d spent years in training, but a vast majority of his lessons had practical only. They never seemed to have time to sit around and discuss complex Force theory or  _ how _ the techniques actually worked. Obi-wan always said he’d explain it later and then later didn’t come before some new problem.

And, really, from the way Jiang Cheng would roll his eyes and complain that this or that didn’t actually matter, Anakin didn’t feel like he was really missing anything. He didn’t have to be a weaponsmith to know how to use a sword and since out in the galaxy no one used talismans or hand signs, it didn’t seem worth learning. Nevertheless, it was almost a pleasant experience until Wen Ning shakingly put up his hand.

“Um, that last bird call was actually a Wen Sect signal.” Everyone stopped their horses. “There should be at least a squadron coming on the road. I-I’m not sure if they’re ahead of us or behind, though.”

Unfortunately, they were in a slight valley between several hills and there was no visible cover. Ria gestured for the others to follow her, dismounted and led her horse at a walk into the knee-high grass. She pulled out a candle, handed it to Wen Ning and then went to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng. “Hold me up.”

“What?”

“Up, now!”

Wei Wuxian clasped his hands into a step and Jiang Cheng followed his example. Ria stepped onto their hands and gestured for them to lift her as high as they could. 

“Wen Ning, light the candle and hold it up in front of me.” Without waiting for him to comply, she closed her eyes and took several deep, concentrating breaths. With one hand in front of her chest to pull Force out of her chest, she opened her eyes. She wove her right hand through the air with precise motions before the fire was pulled off the candle and spread out in the sky over them. It hung there, eerie and flickering in the late-afternoon sun before dropping down to scorch the grass in a complex pattern.

She hopped back onto the ground and moved to calm the horses. She didn’t even glance over her work. Wei Wuxian on the hand, was fascinated. He craned his neck to see as much of the pattern as he could, but the array was large enough to fit them and the horses, so there was no chance he’d be able to see the whole thing without being much higher than Ria had been to cast it.

He pressed his hand against the wall of Force energy emanating from the array. “Is this some kind of invisibility technique?”

“True invisibility is impossible,” Ria said. “And false invisibility takes too much power. This just makes us impossible to notice. Just don’t let the horses move outside the boundary.”

“Is there a difference?” Jiang Cheng asked.

“Human brains are really terrible,” Ria said.

“You always say it like that,” Wei Wuxian interrupted. “What would we be if not human? A ghost? Is their memory better?”

Anakin felt a thread of panic in his chest. As far as these people knew, humans were the only sentient species in existence. What would they do if they found out they weren’t alone?

“Yes, ghosts do have better memories. Humans conflate events and emotions and pour everything together into a horrible stew of the past.” Ria rubbed the bottom edge of her scar. 

Anakin’s breath caught in his throat. Shit. Of course. Asking Ria about memory was callous at best. Wei Wuxian met his eyes with shared panic. What would they do if she had another breakdown and broke the array? Or worse, called down more lightning to directly give away their location?

Finally, she turned away from the horses. “You know you have blood in your eyes, right?”

Wei Wuxian shared a look with Jiang Cheng. “Yeah?”

“Why don’t you see it?”

“What?”

“Look closely at each others’ eyes. You can see the blood vessels in their eyes, but not your own? Why?” She waited, letting the confusion sink in. “The truth is that you  _ do _ see them, but since they’re always there and never moving, your mind just forgets they’re there. Like if you hear the same sound enough times, you forget it’s there.”

Even though Anakin already knew that on a vague, academic sort-of level, was uncomfortable with the thought. In war, having your senses simply ignore things was dangerous at best.

But before any of them could complain or express fear at the concept, the false bird call rang out again. They froze and moments later the sound of horses rang out in the valley. They saw the dust kicked up by their hooves before they saw the Wen Sect soldiers. There were at least one hundred fighters. No one said a word as they rode past, following the road to Qinghe, their banners snapping in the air.

The bird call had sounded real. Like Ria said, if you hear something enough times, you stop listening to it. If Wen Ning hadn’t said anything, they would have been caught. They would have been imprisoned and probably tortured in revenge for the failed assault on Lotus Pier. Wen Ning would have been rescued and reunited with his sister. If anyone in Qinghe doubted Wen Ning’s intentions, Anakin might punch them himself. 

Once the Wen Sect soldiers crested the far hill and disappeared from sight, Wei Wuxian sighed loudly and dramatically dropped to the ground. He dug through his sleeves and pulled out a blank talisman paper. He sketched a design in the air, whispered to it, and then pointed it in the direction of the distant mountains. The edges of the talisman burned and it took off, flying through the air. 

“A message?”

“What did it say?”

“I told Red Blade Master we were sending him a gift to herald our arrival.”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Ah, calm down, Jiang Cheng. I just told him the soldiers were coming.”

“And if it gets intercepted by the Wen on the way there! They’ll know we’re behind them and turn around!”

“Calm down. The road curves back and forth up the mountains. The talisman takes the straightest path. We’d have to have really bad luck for it to get intercepted.”

Jiang Cheng kicked him in the back for that comment. Anakin couldn’t blame him.

“Should we… camp here for the night? In the array?”

Ria frowned. “It’s probably not worth it. That commander wasn’t particularly decorated. No unique sigal or banner. Plus, no camp followers. They’re probably a sacrificial vanguard to remind the Nie Sect they’re on the losing side. Ride horses to save their spiritual energy for the attack. This close, they may ride through the night. We won’t push, so it’s unlikely we’ll catch them before nightfall.”

Anakin frowned and switched to Basic. “How do you know so much about primitive warfare?”

“It’s more interesting than gunfights. It’s a huge holonovel genre.”

“They have holonovels in the Archives?”

“I had an allowance.”

“And you spent it reading more books?”

“You would have spent it on droid parts!”

“What’s wrong with droid parts?”

“What’s wrong with books?”

Wei Wuxian laughed. “You two are just like me and Jiang Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes and punched his brother in the arm.

“See?”

Jiang Cheng grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to his feet. “Come on. We should get going. If we’re late, Mother will find a way to whip us from Lotus Pier.”

They walked the horses back to the road and rode them at a gentle pace toward Qinghe. Aside from the soldiers ahead of them, there was no one on the road. Even though war hadn’t officially been declared between the Nie Sect and the Wen Sect, craftsmen and vendors knew better than to travel. 

Despite what Ria had said, they made camp early, as soon as they found a sheltered overhang that couldn’t be seen from the road. Wen Ning made another smokeless campfire and they agreed to the same watch schedule as the night before. Rest didn’t come easily, not after such an obvious slap in the face that they were in the middle of a dangerous conflict.

The Wen Sect wasn’t a problem for tomorrow, or later. It was a problem for whenever they were spotted. A problem that people were fighting every day, most likely with little to no regard for civilian life. Non-cultivators wouldn’t stand a chance. Even swordsmen would fall under the first wave of attack. What could they do without the Force to strengthen their guard? If Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang were wrong, if, somehow, the Nie Sect planned to remain neutral in the conflict, even after being attacked, it would spell disaster for everyone.

Anakin didn’t want to feel helpless or give in to despair, but he was travelling with a healer and three other fighters when the Wen Sect could thoughtlessly throw away a hundred lives to send a message. He really, really hated war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: QINGHE. FINALLY. I HAVE BEEN WAITING ALL FIC FOR THIS.
> 
> Tell me what you're looking forward to seeing :)


	12. Braggadocio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wen Ning continues to be babie. Huaisang gets his friends back. Nie Mingjue trusts Madam Yu's judgement as far as she can throw him. (Not very)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the other hand, Nie Mingjue can't throw Madam Yu at all.

Anakin’s black and brown robes disappeared after the attack on Lotus Pier. Cultivators were on the opposite end of the spectrum from Jedi when it came to ostentation. They wanted to be seen as rich and powerful. Anakin strongly suspected Madam Yu would have seen it as a personal insult if a cultivator left her domain looking like a peasant. His new robes had three layers. The top two were a dark red-orange and the bottom layer was black. The fabric thrummed with protective enchantments. Instead of wide, trailing sleeves, he had black leather bracers.

Ria wore new robes, too, though hers were closer to what she’d had before. Instead of a pure light-blue, her outer layers were seafoam green - likely to differentiate from the Lan Sect’s sky blue - and her under layer was dark blue. She did have long sleeves and they were stuffed with  _ qikun _ pouches holding supplies. When her sword was tucked beneath her belt, it disappeared into the fabric except for the dark purple tassal. And so they entered the Unclean Realm as a chaotic splash of wealth against the mountainside. 

Wen Sect bodies were lined on either side of the road: not buried, but not desecrated. Simply waiting for their superiors or crows to find them. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian approached the gates side-by-side. Jiang Cheng spoke formally to the guard and gave him the letters from Sect Leader Jiang and Madam Yu. Either the guard recognized the two young masters or it would be too rude to keep them waiting outside because the five of them were brought in without hesitation.

Stablehands took the horses and a tall, gruff disciple led them into the fortress. Ria kept her right hand on Wen Ning’s shoulder and he didn’t dare look higher than anyone’s knees. They were kept waiting for a few minutes in a side room before being escorted to the main hall. Once they were in position in front of the Nie Sect throne, Ria gently pressed on Wen Ning’s shoulder until he sank to his knees.

Wei Wuxian managed to keep his mouth shut through the introductions and bows to Sect Leader Nie, but all decorum was thrown out when Sect Leader Nie’s younger brother, Nie Huaisang, swept into the room with a painted fan instead of a sword. They chattered at each other like song birds for all of thirty seconds the Red Blade Master shut them up.

“Huaisang! Take Young Master Jiang and Young Master Wei to Zonghui. They’ll be joining Second Young Master Lan on the mission to the Wen Indoctrination facility.” 

With much fanning and a little stuttering, Nie Huaisang took his two friends from the room. Anakin glanced at Ria; he wasn’t sure if they were supposed to step forward or not. Under normal circumstances, he would assume so, but he’d never had a prisoner kneeling next to him before. Ria didn’t move, simply standing with her sword in her left hand and held behind her back.

“You two…” Sect Leader Nie leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand, his elbow on his knee. “Violet Spider doesn’t hand out recommendations easily. Even still, to send a Wen-dog to my home and expect me to let it live?”

Ria bowed her head. “Would you like a demonstration, Red Blade Master?”

“Go on, then.”

Ria took a step to the side and lifted her chin imperiously. “Look at me.” When Wen Ning tentatively met her eyes, Ria waved her hand and released the Mindtrick. “Perform a handstand. Turn around. Kneel.” Each command was sharp and delivered with a snap. When each action was completed and Wen Ning was again kneeling, she turned back to Sect Leader Nie with raised eyebrows.

“Is he completely under your control?”

Ria nodded.

“Have him strip.”

Anakin nearly choked. The best possible outcome was that Sect Leader Nie would humiliate Wen Ning, but even that was beyond the pale. He shot anxious looks at Ria, but she didn’t look at him or change expression.

“With all due respect, Sect Leader, while we offer ourselves under your command our sect’s tenets take precedence. There are many restrictions on how prisoners are to be treated. Sentients that are under control and compliant are to be treated with dignity. Further, not only is the prisoner a member of the gentry, but he is a non-combatant.”

Sect Leader Nie laughed without humor. “No Wen-dog is a non-combatant.”

Still, Ria’s expression didn’t change. However, the icy command was then aimed at the Sect Leader and not Wen Ning. “Dehumanization of prisoners is likewise unacceptable.”

Sect Leader Nie threw his head back in a brash laugh. “You have guts, to challenge me before my own seat.”

“Standing for righteousness is a matter of honor, not bravery.”

Sect Leader Nie gestured for one of the disciples standing by to come forward. “Take Wen Qionglin to the healers’ wing. I am to be notified immediately if he performs any unauthorized techniques or if he is mistreated. Understood?”

“Of course, Sect Leader.”

Ria smirked as Wen Ning was escorted away. Once again, Anakin was glad that she’d decided she was his elder for this. He’d passed his share of unspoken tests, but for all of his gumption he didn’t think he had the sheer  _ viciousness _ required to impress first Madam Yu and then Sect Leader Nie. These were career generals, not studious Force users that happened to be generals. 

As far as Anakin knew, Ria hadn’t participated at all in the Clone Wars. She’d been working on a research project involving multiple, broken holocrons when Master Obi-wan requested her assistance for the mission. She’d been chosen because of her reputation for proper Jedi behavior and the fact that her scar made her look intimidating to strangers. He’d been so angry and dismissive at being partnered with someone like her. Now that he could see the truth, he didn’t want anyone else at his side.

Sect Leader Nie rose from his throne and stepped down until he was next to them. He was only barely taller than Anakin who was only barely taller than Ria himself. Not that he was looking at Anakin. Sect Leader Nie grinned like a predator with too many teeth and too much fire in his eyes.

“If you’re so concerned by matters of honor, how do you have the face to suggest you can solve a problem my ancestors spent generations on?”

Ria matched his expression with a sharp smile of her own. “Stand in the ashes of your ancestors and ask their ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.”

Sect Leader Nie laughed and clapped Ria on the shoulder with enough Force energy that a normal human would have been thrown to the ground with at least one broken bone. “They all underwent soul-calming ceremonies, but you have a quick wit.”

“I don’t know the specifics of the letter you received, but my shidi and I don’t have golden cores. The way we cultivate is fundamentally different from the Five Great Clans. The Nie Sect’s problem is likely not a matter of intelligence, but instead perspective. How can you be expected to win a game when the rules are not made clear?”

He looked mollified, but only for a few seconds before shaking his head. “No. You can be as clever as you like, but I won’t be the one to put the safety of my clan on a little girl’s shoulders.”

“If you’re unable to Sense my strength, the fault isn’t mine and I refuse to stand aside from such an insult to my capability.”

Anakin took a step back. The tension in the air was growing too thick too quickly. He was half-surprised neither of them had outright snarled after Ria threw the verbal gauntlet. Blood drained from his face when he remembered how she’d crackled to life with Force lightning after passing out. Was she at risk of falling to the Dark Side? Should he interfere?  _ Could _ he even subdue her if he tried? Sure, Anakin was strong, but capability could easily win out over strength.

“I don’t have the face to beat up a child.”

Ria laughed. “Do you have the face to lose to one? If you make me challenge all of your lieutenants first, it will take quite a bit to repay that insult.”

Sect Leader Nie eyed her for a moment before hitting her shoulder with his open palm. Though the motion looked like a light shove, even from the distance, Anakin could sense the Force behind the motion. When Ria didn’t so much as twitch, let alone reel back from the impact, he nodded. 

“Far be it from me to delay your meeting with the ground.”

Sect Leader Nie took her out to the training yard. His disciples cleared the dueling ring after a single, silent gesture. Anakin rubbed the back of his neck. They’d been traveling for days; Anakin was exhausted. Surely Ria was tired, too. And the disciples in the Unclean Realm had just fought off one hundred Wen soldiers. There had to be some alternative to fighting it out like animals. He stood off to the side, a ring of disciples forming around the dueling ring. Thankfully, Anakin was tall enough to see over most of them.

Nie Huaisang, however, wasn’t. He pushed his way through the disciples, using his fan to tap them this way and that. “Brother, what are you doing?”

“Be quiet, Huaisang. I’m answering a challenge. Watch and learn something.” Sect Leader Nie held his greatsword casually with only his right hand. 

Ria held Canlian’s sheath in her left hand, ready, but undrawn. The Nie disciples crowded each other without restraint.

“Did this woman really challenge the Red Blade Master?”

“Don’t say ‘this woman.’ Look at her, she’s nearly as big as he is.”

“Size isn’t everything.”

“Neither are looks. No one questions Zewu-jun or Second Young Master Lan.”

“Wei-xiong! Brother’s going to kill your friend!” Nie Hauisang grabbed the front of Wei Wuxian’s robes and shook him.

Wei Wuxian just laughed. Laughed with far more confidence than Anakin felt. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. She’s tougher than she looks. Madam Yu even likes her and she doesn’t like anyone.”

“Ah, how did you find such a scary person?”

As if on cue, Ria drew her sword and leapt at Sect Leader Nie. Their blades crashed with a ring of steel and a wave of Force energy. Their blows were exchanged faster than a normal human could see. With each step and pivot, their feet sunk into the ground as if they weighed a hundred times more than they actually did.

The disciples continued to gossip, with more fervor once the fight began. 

“Can someone unknown really hope to beat Red Blade Master and Baxia?”

“Isn’t that a new sword?”

“I’ve never seen this sword style. Harsh, but elegant. Did they branch from the Lan Sect?”

After a dodge that didn’t even look like it succeeded, Ria moved away with a slick backflip. “Tell me, Sect Leader Nie. I am unfamiliar with how your duels are judged. Is it simply a contest of swordsmanship, or are you using all of your cultivation skills?”

“Do you think you have something I cannot counter?”

Ria grinned and took a step forward. Instead of moving, she disappeared, reappearing behind Sect Leader nie, even facing the opposite direction than she’d started in.

Anakin’s jaw dropped. Shadow Stepping was an advanced and draining technique. He’d only seen Master Obi-wan use it a handful of times.

But the Shadow Step itself wasn’t enough - Sect Leader Nie spun in place and parried her strike before she’d even fully reappeared. Surprise traveled through the disciples in a wave. Nie Hauisang’s voice rose above them all, loudly demanding Wei Wuxian explain what Ria had just done.

The duelers ignored the crowd. While Sect Leader Nie parried most of Ria’s attacks, Ria focused on dodging. Baxia wasn’t slow for being larger than a regular sword, but Ria had no issues dancing in and out of range. Finally, she grinned and took another Shadow Step. Sect Leader Nie was ready to parry the incoming strike, but instead of a direct strike, Ria used the Force to spin her sword over the back of her hand and then up from behind, neatly slipping under the Sect Leader’s guard. She followed it up with a heavy strike from her left hand, still holding the sheath.

Once he’d finished sliding back from the blow, Sect Leader Nie planted Baxia’s tip in the ground and leaned most of his weight on the blade. He caught his breath, then threw his head back and laughed into the stunned silence that surrounded the ring. “Well done, well done.” He slung his sword over his back and clapped Ria on the shoulder. “Come, come. Let’s eat. I will show you the library later.”

Ria glanced over his shoulder and gestured for Anakin to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh, I hate writing fight scenes, but I'm pretty pleased with how this came out.
> 
> Also, I want to just mention that Nie Mingjue is a solid _6'3"_. Anakin is 6'2" and Ria is 6'1". That was a rather funny coincidence I found in my research. Lan Wangji is 6'2" and WWX (original body) is just 2cm shorter, coming in at around Ria's height, for reference.
> 
> All cultivation/Force techniques in this fic have an exact or very strong basis in either: Canon (mdzs) or Legends/EU/Games (sw). The sword spinning technique Ria used is _typically _only used with a double-bladed lightsaber. Is her saber double-bladed? No. Why does she know it? Read to find out.__
> 
> __Coming soon: Why does the Nie Sect experience qi deviation? Nie Mingjue decides he needs to secure Ria as an in-law before Madam Yu does._ _
> 
> __Thanks for your continued support on this fic!_ _


	13. Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets roaring drunk. It goes as poorly as you'd think.

Dinner that night wasn’t, technically, a banquet, but the main hall was full of Nie disciples drinking and carousing. From what Anakin could gather, few people challenged Sect Leader Nie and fewer still defeated him. Apparently, his most frequent opponent was Xichen, which was an even stranger thought than Ria dueling him. Before the moon had even fully risen, the hall devolved into bawdy, tavern drinking songs. Anakin thought he should be horrified that Ria seemed to know the lyrics and be singing along, but the truth was that he was more impressed than anything.

To his left, Jiang Cheng looked a mix of amused and disgusted. “Did they just forget she’s a woman? How is anyone supposed to come out of this night with their honor intact?”

Nie Huaisang hid most of his face behind his fan. “Ah, I’m sure it’s fine. Outside of the Lan Sect no one is more righteous than my brother. If he says nothing untoward happened, people will believe him.”

Wei Wuxian put his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. “Jiang Cheng, you’re just jealous that she can drink better than you.”

“You-!”

“Is that going on your list for the matchmakers?”

“Shut up!”

Anakin leaned over. “Matchmakers?”

Nie Huaisang snapped the fan closed. “You don’t have matchmakers in Coruscant?”

“Not that I know of? What do they do?”

Nie Huaisang opened his fan and waved it like he was experiencing heat stroke. “Wei-xiong, Wei-xiong, please. I can’t answer this. It’s too unbelievable.”

“Is it all politically arranged marriages, then? Surely you don’t just choose for yourself!” Jiang Cheng looked at Anakin like he’d grown a second head.

“Well, members of our sect aren’t supposed to be married at all, but I’ve never heard of that for civilians. Marriages are more-or-less exclusively love matches. The nobility do arranged marriages sometimes, I guess, but we don’t have matchmakers.”

Wei Wuxian gave a large, dramatic sigh. “Poor Jiang Cheng. Good thing we do have matchmakers or you’d never find someone.”

Jiang Cheng elbowed him hard enough for Wei Wuxian to go reeling. “Shut up.” He turned to Anakin. “And you. Did you tell my mother that before we left?”

“I might’ve mentioned it to your father. Why?”

He groaned and covered his face with both hands, even as Wei Wuxian caught on and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Eventually, Nie Huaisang was the one that answered. “It’s probably nothing. Jiang-xiong just worries Madam Yu might send a courting gift on his behalf.”

Anakin choked. “She wouldn’t really, would she? Who would want Ria as a daughter-in-law?”

“Thank you!” Jiang Cheng said before taking another drink, as if even the thought of marrying Ria required intoxication. Anakin took a sympathetic drink.

Nie Huaisang glanced over the edge of his fan at them. “She did beat Brother in a duel. That’s more than enough for most cultivators to want to have her continue their line. Plus, according to the letter from Sect Leader Jiang, she’s exceptionally knowledgeable about cultivation theory. Now, with recommendations on her character from Madam Yu and Brother, any clan that learns of her will be sending gifts.”

“Kriff.” Anakin rubbed his forehead. Around them, the Nie Sect disciples continue to drink and sing-stroke-yell. “So how does it work? Is it a betrothal if she just accidentally picks up the wrong thing?”

“Only if you listen to folklore. Real gentry wouldn’t accept that kind of thing,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Depending on who her parents are, the family seeking to marry would approach her parents or master for permission first and they can accept or reject the suit. Then she can technically accept or reject the gift on her own behalf, but that’s just a formality.” Jiang Cheng shook his head. “Most women would rather die than be given a suit they don’t agree with.”

“What? You’re joking, right?” Anakin’s head hurt. He sent a strong pulse of cleansing Force through his body. He needed to be more sober for this conversation. 

“No, Jiang-xiong is right. Most families consult with their daughters before accepting suits for that reason… Once the first gift is accepted, it’s just a series of formal meetings and gifts while their families write the contract and make preparations for the wedding. Oh, and the dowry is sent to the groom’s family.”

“Well, she’s an orphan, her master will  _ never _ come here and everything we currently own were gifts from either the Gusu Lan or Yungmeng Jiang sects, so she’s basically unmarriable.”

Jiang Cheng let out a loud, relieved, if rude, prayer for that.

Wei Wuxian leaned against his elbow against the table in front of him so he could get a better look at Anakin. “I thought your master was coming to get you?”

“Mine, yes. Hers, no.”

“Do women have a different master in your sect?”

Anakin rubbed the back of his neck. “Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian already know, but where we’re from it’s very different. Coming here, it’s more cultivators than I’ve seen in my entire life. Where we come from, there’s only one spiritually sensitive person per…” He held up his hands and tried to count zeros. “Thousand, thousand, thousand… Less than that, really, but I don’t know how to say such a high number.”

Nie Huaisang dropped his fan. “What?”

“Yeah. There are so few of us that usually someone becomes a master in their own right before ever meeting another potential student. So we each have our own master. We were sent on a mission that required more than one person, so my master ‘borrowed’ her from her master.”

Wei Wuxian frowned and took another drink, directly from the bottle. “That can’t be true. There aren’t that many people across all of the sects here. If that was true, there’d only be one cultivator in the whole world.”

“That’s why we came here. Well, we got stranded nearby, then felt that there were more cultivators here than should be possible. By a lot. We were afraid it was a secret base held by our opponents in the war.”

“That’s why you’re helping us, isn’t it?” Wei Wuxian asked. “You sit by and do nothing to help against the Wen Sect and next they’ll come knocking on your doors.”

“Our sect really does have a rule that we have to get involved in this sort of thing, but if it didn’t that’s why we would intervene, yes.”

“We’re not going to be able to help you with your war once this is done. We may have held off the first attack, but Lotus Pier is close to Qishan. They’ll try again. We’ll spend years rebuilding once this is over,” Jiang Cheng said.

“We don’t need help. It’s enough that no one from here bolsters the enemy. That’s why we haven’t given anyone specifics on where we’re from.”

Nie Huaisang tapped his fan against his lips. “In that case, it would be better if you both became officially guests disciples of one of the great sects. Rogue cultivators get asked a lot of questions. I’m sure Brother can be convinced if Madam Yu can’t.”

Wei Wuxian cackled. “If they become guest disciples of the Nie Sect, Madam Yu can just send her proposal to Red Blade Master.”

“Shh, Wei-xiong, don’t you want Jiang-xiong to get married?”

Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose as the two Yungmeng Jiang disciples tackled each other. He shifted into a more-comfortable position and picked up his alcohol again.

\---

Anakin didn’t remember going to bed, but he woke up neatly tucked in with his boots politely set on the floor next to his bed, so someone had taken pity on him. Ria didn’t fare as well. Or perhaps she’d drunkenly tried to get up because he found her on the floor with her duvet covering her from the waist up and piled up on top of her face. He stuck his hand under to ensure she was still breathing, then pressed two fingers against her jugular vein and cleansed the last of the alcohol from her system.

He left her on the floor to regret her choices and put on his boots to find breakfast. He found a line of Nie cultivators with green-grey faces matching their robes as they leaned against the wall. Every now and then a servant would step out of the building they were slouching on to hand a bowl of rice porridge to the next in line. He stepped up to the door and knocked on the frame. “Ah, do you need any assistance?”

The head cook gave him a once over, laughed and then gestured for one of the other staff to hand him a bowl. “Thank you, Young Master, but we have everything handled. They knew the consequences of drinking. Sect Leader will have them running laps later.”

Anakin took his bowl and walked back outside to stay out of the way. The line along the wall was significantly larger and included Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng. Nie Huaisang stood over them, not hungover, eating fruit and throwing pieces of the peel at them. Anakin joined them and accepted a fruit from Nie Huaisang. He peeled it with his teeth and stuck the rind around the edge of his bowl.

“I hate both of you,” Jiang Cheng said, clutching his head.

“I can try to teach you how to cleanse the alcohol out of your system, but that doesn’t stop the hangover.”

“What? Why not? How? That doesn’t make any sense.” The entire line flinched from Wei Wuxian’s yelling.

Anakin shrugged. “Because alcohol doesn’t cause the hangover. You feel like trash because you didn’t drink any water all night.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened to the point that they looked about to pop out of his skull. “Wait, so if we just drink a lot of water while drinking we won’t get hungover.”

Nie Huaisang swatted Anakin with his fan. “Why did you tell them? I was going to let them suffer another two years.”

“You knew?!” Several rocks were thrown at Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng, meanwhile, looked unsurprised.

“Of course I knew. No one knows drinking like Brother. The last thing we need in a sect of walking qi deviations is hangovers.

Wei Wuxian gestured to the line with both arms spread wide.

“It’s not my fault if they don’t take advantage of our sect’s full range of knowledge. We’re good at more than just killing things, you know.”

Their dark expressions made it clear that they very much didn’t know that, but were too hungover to complain. Nie Huaisang shrugged and threw the last of his fruit peel at Wei Wuxian. “And don’t think Brother will let you out of running laps, either. Nie Zonghui calls it the ‘stupid tax’ and he’s right.”

“But we’re supposed to go to Qishan today with Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whined.

“Sorry, Wei-xiong.” Nie Huaisang didn’t sound the least bit sorry. “You should have known Brother wouldn’t let you go so easily.” He turned to Anakin. “Also, do you still want me to write my friends?”

Anakin scanned his memory, but found nothing. “About what?”

“Your wife, of course!”

Anakin winced.

Nie Huaisang patted him on the shoulder. “Trust me, far better that your master find out when he arrives than you having to dodge proposals the whole time you’re here.” He gasped in sudden excitement. “Oh! You could always cut your hair more! Very disrespectful to your ancestors. No one would want to marry their daughter to you.”

Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose, but silently decided that was probably a good idea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Ook for the suggestion of the wave of proposals coming at Ria and Anakin. 👌
> 
> I'm going to play extremely fast and loose on courting/marriage traditions, but a) it's a fanfic b) the original novel isn't a pinnacle of period-research either. If you want a fic with impeccable research, please check out the timetravel fixit [And Time Is But A Paper Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23026369). (mdzs)
> 
> Anakin: ... fuck is 1000 really the highest number in this language????  
> 万: ಠ_ಠ
> 
> (fyi, that's the character for 10k)


	14. Responsibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin is worried and Ria starts her research.

Ria found Anakin in the training grounds. Despite sleeping on the floor she looked rested and distinctly not hungover. She raised both eyebrows at the Nie disciples running laps, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng included. “What’s this about?”

Nie Huaisang answered her from behind his fan. “Punishment for anyone foolish enough to wake up hungover.”

“They know the secret is just drink water, right?”

“That’s why they’re being punished.”

Anakin touched the back of her shoulder. “Are you really going to stay here?”

Her face scrunched up in confusion. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”

“Master said…”

Ria rolled her eyes. “He won’t be here for months. As long as we’re both alive when he gets here, it’s no big deal. That said, you should learn how to ride the sword when you guys camp at night.”

“You don’t know how?” Nie Huaisang asked, looking between them.

“We don’t cultivate with swords at all.” Anakin shook Yihao at him. “These were gifts from Sect Leader Jiang because we were forbidden from bringing our own spiritual tools.”

Ria held her hands about ten centimeters apart. “Our spiritual tools are this big. They work more like the Zidian than swords.”

Nie Huaisang fanned himself. When he spoke, his words weren’t nearly as casual as he probably wanted them to sound. “Your primary tool? And you don’t experience any… difficulties?”

“None. That’s why I want to take a look at your library.”

Hope, tiny and brittle, crossed Nie Huaisang’s face before it was shuttered behind old pain and hidden by a guileless smile. “You can follow me. Nie Zonghui will tell them when they’re done.”

Ria nodded, but grabbed Anakin's sleeve before following. “I need a moment to speak to my shidi.” She leaned in and switched to Basic. “Watch yourself in Qishan. Your Force Senses are far more acute than anyone else’s here. If you’re not careful, you may end up reliving the torture that created some of the resentful energy.”

“What? You’ve gotta be kriffing me.”

She tightened her hand on his arm. “I’m not. My father-” Her expression turned as black as night. She took a moment to regain her voice. “He was a historian for the Jedi. The places he went pre-dated the Rule of Two and the things he experienced- Look, he called Force Sensitivity a curse after that and begged my forgiveness for passing it on to me.”

Anakin felt cold. “You really did get your memories back.”

Ria looked away, but her grip didn’t loosen. “Some of them. It’s bad.”

Anakin put his hand over hers. “I’ll stay here with you. You’re not alone. You- You don’t have to drown it in alcohol.”

Ria laughed and the sound was so brittle and so harsh that Nie Huaisang startled and took a step towards them.

“Your support is noted, but unnecessary. Fortunately or not, I have the alcohol tolerance of a zeltron.”

“Ria, I found you on the  _ floor _ this morning.”

“From the nightmares. My parents didn’t die in an accident, nor was my injury accidental, nor were we the only victims. My entire extended family was slaughtered.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“I know what I’m doing. Just trust me, okay?”

“Okay.” Anakin sighed and squeezed her hand. “Okay, fine, but tell me if there’s anything I can do, alright?”

“I will, but don’t get your hopes up.” Ria released him and motioned for Nie Huaisang to take her to the library.

Anakin watched the direction they left in, long after they were out of sight. He was missing too much of the picture, but every piece she showed him hurt worse than the last. Were the Jedi the ones that attacked her family? It didn’t make sense, if her father had been one. Had she suggested he come clean about his relationship because some part of her had remembered her own parents were Jedi and married?

Or- She’d only said her father was a Jedi. And her extended family was dead, which her father wouldn’t have had as a Jedi himself, so her mother couldn’t have been. Unless  _ they _ were Green Jedi? But that seemed unlikely, surely the Order wouldn’t have erased her memories if her family were all Jedi. And wouldn’t he have heard if an enclave of Green Jedi was destroyed?

_ She’s not planning on going back, is she? _

\---

“Ria-jie, thank you, really, for helping. I’ve been researching for years, but then Brother made me attend the Lan Lectures and all they have there is documentation on treatment for qi deviation. Nothing preventative.”

Ria patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll do what I can. I assume there’re other causes for qi deviation than the Nie-style?”

“Severe and acute stress is the prominent one. I found a few records that suggest extensive use of unorthodox cultivation methods causes it, too, but with few details.” He tapped his fan against his chest.

“Let me guess, everyone is more concerned with keeping people from the unorthodox path than documenting the problems that come from it.”

Nie Huaisang nodded. “Grand Master Lan even threw a book at Wei-xiong rather than even consider the issue. It didn’t sound like a good idea, but his response wasn’t very convincing.”

Ria hummed as she considered that. “Sounds familiar. Our sect is so set on erasing all details of techniques against the ‘proper’ method that most disciples, not just Anakin, don’t even know what resentful energy is.”

“I just can’t fathom that. What do they think it is, when they feel it?”

“They don’t. There are so few cultivators where we come from because there’s so little spiritual energy. We don’t have ghosts, or monsters or walking corpses. The only things we fight are other people.” She sighed. “Well… The war we’re in, it’s mostly us against, how to say, metal puppets that can be controlled by non-cultivators.”

“Metal puppets? Do you mean like-” He held out his wrist and wiggled it, as if controlling a marionette. “-or like fierce corpses?”

“The latter. With metal bodies and only the limbs and organs they need to fight.”

Nie Huaisang frowned and stopped walking. “But how do mediocre people control them?”

“The details aren’t important, not really. I don’t think I can describe it in any way that would actually be meaningful. Suffice to say that when cultivators aren’t available, people create all kinds of objects that seem impossible without spiritual energy.”

“Nie Zonghui has said something like that before.” Nie Huaisang sighed and then brought her up to large, double-doors. With a touch of spiritual energy, he opened the lock on the doors and pushed them open so they could enter. 

Ria sighed as she looked at the rows of bookshelves. She’d known everything would be physical texts and scrolls, but facing the reality of a primitive archive still gave her heartburn. It didn’t help that she’d slept through breakfast after a restless night of nightmares. “How is everything organized?”

“By subject? How is it supposed to be organized?”

“That’s as good as any other system.” Ria rubbed her scar. It didn’t hurt like it did before her partial memory restoration, but it was a difficult habit to break. “Right, well, can you get me some paper, an ink stone and brush?”

Nie Huaisang hesitated, but then slipped through the library to a room in the back.

Ria walked amid the shelves for a moment, then gave up and kneeled in the center of the library. She closed her eyes and felt out with her Force Senses. She felt Nie Huaisang leave the back room and deposit the writing materials on one of the low tables, but if he said anything, it fell on deaf ears. Ria didn’t have particularly strong Force intuition, but the thick Force in the air on this world made it better than it was. 

Finally, she opened her eyes and found a roll of tied, wooden slats in her hands. It wasn’t the strangest primitive book she’d ever seen, but it still sat oddly in her hands. She read the writing on the outside. 

_ A teaching guide? _

In something of a trance, she stood and walked to the table with the paper. Reading top-down and right to left gave her an odd feeling of vertigo, but at least it didn’t trigger her vomit-reflex. She sketched a rough outline of the teaching procedure on her paper and then compared it back to her book. Something about it felt significant. More than that simply being the book dropped in her lap. However, the significance eluded her. 

The man she’d taken the language from had been a member of the Wen Sect. While he’d been educated, several of the characters in the manual were unfamiliar. It was possible they were simply different between dialects, but it was just as likely that he was unfamiliar with technical terms or that the Nie Sect techniques were so different they used different skills entirely.

With a sigh, Ria replaced the book and picked up a handful of texts from around it. Two were the following manuals, a third was an older version of the first text and the fourth was simply a list of Nie Sect techniques. She settled in for the long haul and started a list on another piece of paper of characters she didn’t recognize.

She didn’t stop when a servant brought lunch. Instead, she held the book aloft with the Force and ate with her left hand while her right continued to take notes. The third volume of the instruction manual reiterated what she’d told Anakin: talismans and spells were all well and good, but any serious conflict would be settled with swords, or, as in the case of the Nie Sect, sabers. The text  _ said _ that the Nie Sect devoted more time to the martial aspect of cultivation than other sects, but since they never actually compared notes, Ria took that with a grain of salt.

She had no sense of time as she worked - she’d spent days in the Jedi Archives without breaking for food or sleep, too restless from her months in a healing coma. She didn’t startle when the disciple appeared to lead her to dinner, but she was surprised by how dark it was. She took her list of mystery characters with her.

Sect Leader Nie was already seated at the table when she arrived. He had her sit opposite her with a wave and a grunt, not once looking up from the letter in his hand. Ria picked at her food with mild disinterest until she realized it lacked the mouth-melting spices the Jiang Sect used. She had no appetite, but it was good enough to force down with a mixture of tea and the odorless grain alcohol Sect Leader Nie had served the night before. She was halfway through her food, eyes unfocusedly staring at the opposite wall over the sect leader’s head, when Nie Huaisang arrived.

He bustled in with loudly swishing robes and cheerful apologies for his lateness and complaints about the saber practice he’d been forced to participate in.

“Stop whining and eat your food, Huaisang. If you practiced more often, your arms wouldn’t hurt.” Only then did Sect Leader Nie drop the letter onto the floor next to the table. He looked over at Ria. “You. Any progress?”

Ria shook her head. “I’m starting from the beginning. It’s too consistent and complex of an issue to guess.” She held out her list of unknown words. “I don’t know what any of these mean.”

Nie Huaisang opened his fan, but his brother snapped it closed and threw it to the floor before he could fan himself. With a put upon sigh, he said, “Very bold of you to simply come out and say you don’t know what they mean.”

“I speak six languages. I’m not embarrassed by missing a few words.”

Nie Huaisang whistled. His older brother held the paper over the table and explained what each character meant and how to pronounce them. A few were, as she’d guessed, technical concepts that took several minutes to cover, Nie Huaisang chiming in only every now and then.

Once they were done with the list, Ria fell silent, looking at her food without seeing it as the concepts walked through her mind like a gungan parade. The Nie brothers chatted over the remnants of the meal, but it was so much white noise to her. She was confident in her knowledge and ability to problem solve, but that didn’t make solving the mystery of qi deviation any easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \\(✧∀✧)/
> 
> welcome to the switch section of this bait and switch fic about my oc now that you're all invested. enjoy, lmao.
> 
> Coming soon: Anakin and Jiang Cheng are stuck hardcore third wheeling Wangxian and the Unclean Realm gets a lot of mail.
> 
> I cannot tell you how hard I am chomping at the bit to reveal the problem with Nie Sect cultivation. Unfortunately, pacing decided to have a say in this fic.
> 
> Lastly: Ria doesn't have and won't develop a drinking problem. Anakin is a good boy to worry about her, but that's not one of her vices.


	15. Relatively Useful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swords are recovered and several people learn new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Chapter Tax: y'all have to sit through this author's note.
> 
> Alright, so, while I do my best to stay socially literate, it's a lifelong process and we all have our own privileges and biases that make us blind to certain things until someone else points them out. A very dear friend brought to my attention that this fic can have some particularly unfortunate (read as: racist) implications, since Anakin is a white boy strutting around in ancient China.
> 
> I have done and will continue to do my best to ensure that this comes across as meetings of individuals who all have their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and their faults. What for me is happy-fic-AU-funtimes can easily make readers uncomfortable and I will do my best to address that if/when it comes up.
> 
> For example, what my friend pointed out specifically was that I paraphrased a scene to him as being "Chinese is hard." (For reference, other scenes are paraphrased as "Fuck the Jedi" and "Horses are the Worst, Part 2") Once I provided the context of "This character is struggling with the language and asks for help and it's very much that character's problem and not a criticism of the language" it wasn't an issue. However, that doesn't change the fact that my ad hoc summary made my friend feel bad. I was not aware-enough and said something harmful.
> 
> (Also I won't take any reassurances that it wasn't harmful. World and social context matters. Given the severe upward spike in specifically anti-Chinese racism due to COVID, it was a massively insensitive phrasing.)
> 
> While this won't result in any specific changes to the plot, such as it is, going forward I am going to work harder to be mindful of phrasing and how some scenes can be interpreted. 
> 
> Thanks for your support on this fic. Please stay safe!

Anakin felt just as stupid as he surely looked. He stood on his sword, hovered less than a meter above the ground, wobbly madly as he tried to balance. Wei Wuxian heckled him and threw peanut shells. Jiang Cheng pretended he wasn’t amused by his adopted brother’s antics. Wangji tried to offer advice, but it came in single, incomprehensible words like “Balance” and “More.”

Despite the visual similarities, it was nothing like riding a hoverboard. A hoverboard could be programmed. A hoverboard was reliable and worked according to programmable algorithms. The movements of a hoverboard could be predicted. Was he spoiled by technology? Yes. Was it a better alternative because it didn’t rely on his own energy to fly? Definitely.

Anakin fell forward off the edge of his blade.

“Stop standing on it sideways,” Jiang Cheng said. “Are you going to ride it flat into the wind? Ridiculous.”

Anakin wanted to snap that they didn’t even _have_ their swords, but he knew that was a low blow and bit his tongue. He climbed back on Yihao and tried to settle the wobble in his knees. As a child, he’d had to balance on a large, plasteel ball that wiggled according to a motor on the inside and that had been infinitely easier.

Wangji walked up to him and Sensed him in the Force like ghostly eyes were passing over his body. He nodded and took a step back away. “It is called riding the sword, but it is your spiritual energy that carries you.”

“I know!” Anakin said as he tried to stay upright.

Wei Wuxian got off the ground, passing his bag of peanuts to Jiang Cheng -- it was empty. He copied Wangji’s Force Sense and then shook his head. “No, no, Lan Zhan is right. You’re being too literal and trying to actually balance on the metal itself.”

Anakin angrily jumped off the sword and hovered next to it at the same height. “Then why is it there if I’m just holding myself up?”

“Wow, your shijie really has all the brains, huh?”

Anakin waved his hand and all of the peanut shells flew from the ground to spray against Wei Wuxian’s black robes.

“Hey!”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes and sighed. "It’s easier to focus your spiritual energy into your sword, _a natural conduit for spiritual energy,_ than the random, discrete patch of air you’re standing on.”

“Oh.” With that in mind, Anakin stepped back onto the sword. He bobbed up and down in the air easily and felt even more ridiculous. “I guess I was making it harder than it had to be.”

“Mn,” Wangji said, which was even more insulting for its accuracy. Wei Wuxian laughed so hard, he struggled to breathe. Jiang Cheng looked extremely close to fratricide. No one could blame him. No one.

After the lengthy flying lessons, the others were at least kind enough to let Anakin out of watch duty, but the next day still dawned too early and with too many horses. They really, truly were terrible animals. The only thing they had going for them was that they were social. The previous day, to his utmost horror, Anakin had learned that domestic horses were actually changed very little from natural selection by domestication. Somehow nature had created the horrors against nature.

Though Anakin was quickly reevaluating his reference for ‘horror against nature.’ Qishan was a terrible region. It was no wonder the Wen Sect was looking for domination: their own territory was dry, exceedingly barren and mercilessly rocky. He was pretty sure he was feeling volcanic activity under the latent Force energy, too. He felt like spreading his arms and shouting “Who lives here? No one should live here!” The fact that they were going to the Indoctrination Facility took it from awfully menacing to comically overdone for a holopera. And not a good, Echani one, either. 

When they dismounted and approached the facility, Anakin met Jiang Cheng’s eyes. Ah, good, at least someone else appreciated how overblown, Old-Empire style everything was. The Wen Sect may as well have painted “We’re the bad guys” on every plinth.

The four of them stormed the building with all the power of a small army. Talisman papers flew, Wangji somehow used his instrument to attack and Jiang Cheng and Anakin mostly just tried to keep up. It would have been embarrassing if the other two weren’t so powerful, but, well, they were. Anakin would have expected more resistance at the place that stored all of the highly valuable spirituals tools, but there it was. After an hour of fighting and twenty minutes of, actually embarrassing, Wei Wuxian flirting with and hanging off of Wangji, a group of disciples from the Lan Sect arrived and cleared out the storage rooms.

Disciple after disciple climbed the stairs to the watch position where they waited, arms full of swords. In the Force, each stack felt like a small cache of kyber crystals. Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian and Wangji took their respective swords with relief akin to people seeing water for the first time in days. Anakin might not _quite_ have had that bond with his lightsaber, but he knew what it was like to finally be re-armed after being captured and weaponless.

Even though it was only mid-afternoon, the allied sects made camp just far enough from the Indoctrination facility that only their scouts and watch could see it. Anakin had clearly been too optimistic when he thought this meant they were all going to rest and then start the next day fresh. No, instead Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng insisted that he continue practicing how to ride the sword. Even Wangji, who was too straight-laced to even pronounce the word shenanigan -- Anakin spent a good hour later that night trying to come up with a local word to take the place of shenanigan in that metaphor -- agreed on the grounds that flight proficiency was critical in times of war.

Which meant, in essence, that Anakin spent the afternoon and early evening making a fool of himself and falling two meters out of the air and into the thick, dry grass.

\---

The second day in the Nie library was much like the first, though with significantly fewer words she didn’t understand. The fourth teaching guide consisted almost completely of individual techniques and how to catch and correct errors in them. Ria put that one back after skimming through it. She spent an hour meditating and came out of it to find a book detailing the history of the sect in her hands. It was, without question, a struggle. Based on the previous night’s conversation, she was fairly certain that this text was written in a strong Qinghe dialect.

She leaned back until she was laid out on the floor and dropped the book on her face in frustration. The library door opened, but it was just Nie Huaisang and a servant, undoubtedly with lunch. She grumbled and waved her arms dramatically.

“Ah, yes, it seems I came just in time.” He peeled the book off her face with two fingers. His grey robes were a different cut than from the day before, missing the wide shoulders and making him look even smaller. He gently laid the book open-faced on her work table and then stood, patiently waiting for her to get up.

Ria dragged herself over to the table with food. The servant lingered unobtrusively near the door, looking bored. It took Ria a few tries to get a proper grip on her chopsticks. Wasn’t particularly fantastic at using them and since Anakin was away she didn’t have to use the Force to cheat to embarrass him. 

She stirred the rice around her bowl. “Did your friends tell you I’d lost my memory.”

“Wei-xiong mentioned something about it.” He covered the lower half of his face with his fan as he ate. “There was even a dramatically timed bolt of lightning.”

“Mn.” Ria took a few, uninterested bites. “My memories have been trickling in, since then. It’s… strange. Unconnected bits and pieces like a half-remembered dream.”

“If you need to rest, you should. Brother doesn’t expect you to find anything; there’s no rush, not really. He should be some twenty years from qi deviation, at least…” Nie Huaisang trailed off uncertainly.

“It’s not so disruptive,” Ria said. “More that--” She sighed. “I remembered my name.”

“It’s not Ria?”

She shook her head. “And it was such a pointless thing for them to change. I’d never have suspected anything about my parentage if I’d known.”

“What is it, then?”

“Aruna.”

“Runa-jie’s quite a nice name.”

Ria laughed. “Not A-runa; Aruna.” She held out her hand and her brush, inkstone and stack of notepaper flew across the room. She pushed some of the plates to the side and wrote out Aruna in aurebesh. She pushed the page to Nie Huaisang and ate with significantly more enthusiasm.

Nie Huaisang hummed and examined the simple characters. “You write from left to right? How strange.”

Ria shrugged. “Everyone writes differently, if they even keep written records. My father knew a people whose history was kept entirely in song.”

“Interesting.” He pushed the paper back. “Write my name.”

That got a full laugh out of her. “Alright, uhh, let me think.” She bit her tongue and wrote out a line of characters. Then she frowned and wrote a different version. In the end, she had five variations on “Huaisang Nie” under the five letters in her own name. “So the longer bit first is ‘Huaisang’ because we write family names second. This writing system is…” She wiggled her fingers. “It’s based on the sounds in the words, but so many people use it that there’s variation in how you can write things.”

“Which one is correct, then?”

“Normally parents just choose when they name the child. Whichever one they think looks nicest. We have a way for our correspondence to correct errors, so it’s not particularly important.”

“Like a talisman that fixes your stroke order?”

“That’s a good analogue.”

Nie Huaisang fanned himself. “I should ask Wei-xiong if he can actually make a talisman for that. Ah, but his calligraphy is terrible. He probably wouldn’t care.”

“Maybe.” Ria took a sip of tea. “Don’t leave right away. I need your help.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t get anywhere in this history. It’s all in the Qinghe dialect.”

“I can certainly read it for you.”

Ria shook her head. “Long term, it’d be better if you just let me, ah, borrow the language from you.”

“Pardon?”

“I know a technique that lets me take a language from someone else’s mind.”

Nie Huaisang blinked slowly. “You can take knowledge directly from someone else’s mind.” It wasn’t a question.

“That’s correct. As for your follow up, yes, I can more or less know what someone else is thinking, if I want to. However, cultivators have mental defenses that block it and they can feed false information simply by thinking of things that aren’t true. It’s not as useful as you’re imagining.”

“Well… I’m sure it still wouldn’t hurt to learn. As a trade, you know, for my Qinghe dialect.”

Ria eyed him. “Alright, but don’t blame me if you learn things you _desperately_ don’t want to know about other people.”

“Don’t worry; I know better than to wonder what’s going in Second Young Master Lan’s head.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference: aurebesh is the alphabet for Galactic Basic (the primary language of SW) and it has 34 letters and makes me angry on a spiritual level.
> 
> Joke's on me; I'm severely ill and have to get tested for COVID. 
> 
> Please have patience with updates for the near future 🙏🙏🙏
> 
> (but don't worry too much. I'm fairly convinced it's the stomach flu since I don't have any respiratory symptoms, but, ya know, gotta be safe)


	16. Machinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin has a bad feeling about this.
> 
> He's right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still really sick and waiting on the COVID results.
> 
> Good thing: I still have no respiratory symptoms
> 
> Bad thing: my husband is now sick and DOES have respiratory symptoms.

Anakin had a bad feeling when they returned to the Unclean Realm. Not a Force Intuition feeling, it was a less ominous, more specific “Ahsoka’s done something we’re all going to regret” feeling. Which was strange, since Ahsoka wasn’t even on-world. Therefore, the only conclusion he could come to was that Ria had done something. After they dismounted their swords, Anakain lifted his hand to get their other men’s attention. “Hey, uh, I just thought you guys should know something… mildly to extremely inconvenient is going to happen.”

Wei Wuxian blinked. “I thought you only knew when something really terrible was going to happen?” He glanced over at Wangji, who nodded back to him, as if he’d known the same thing.

“Well, that’s what I know thanks to the way I cultivate. This is more like… Experience from being a teacher.”

At  _ that, _ Wangji nodded sagely. “Uncle felt the same.”

“I didn’t cause that much trouble!”

“You got kicked out, idiot.”

“I had to teach that Jin Zixuan a lesson! And look, now shijie is free of him!”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He sheathed his sword and walked up to the gates, where they were subsequently led in. A majority of the Lan disciples had taken their burdens directly to Lanling, since it was easy to pick out Nie weapons from the piles.

Nie Huaisang met them in the first courtyard. Wei Wuxian spread his arms wide, as if he were going in for a hug. “Huaisang-xiong, we’re back! Did you miss us?”

Huaisang had his fan covering the lower-half of his face. He didn’t respond aloud, instead making awkwardly intense eye-contact with Wei Wuxian.

Anakin recognized the problem in an instant: Ria had taught him how to read minds. He covered his face with both hands and groaned. “I’m so sorry, everyone.”

“Why?” Jiang Cheng asked, instantly aggressive. He narrowed his eyes at Nie Huaisang. “Did he lose his soul? What did your shijie do?”

“He’s fine,” Anakin said from behind his hands. “It’s everyone else that isn’t.”

“Explain,” Wangji said.

Even Wei Wuxian turned to look expectantly at Anakin, though he jerked back when Nie Huaisang cursed and started fanning himself.

“I almost had it,” Nie Huaisang said.

“It’s really not that useful. You mostly learn far more about what strangers do when they think they’re alone than you ever wanted to.” Anakin dropped his hands. “Is lunch being served? Can we have food?”

Wei Wuxian snapped his gaze between the two of them several times. Eventually, he gasped and his eyes went wide. He ran over and clutched Anakin’s left arm with both of his hands. His eyes jerked down to Anakin’s sleeve and he belatedly remembered none of them knew about his artificial arm. “What’s wrong with your- No, later. Did you shijie teach Nie Huaisang how to  _ read minds? _ Can you read minds? Why didn’t you say so? Will you teach me?”

“I lost my arm a few years ago. Now it’s made of metal. Yes, apparently, she did. Yes, I can. I didn’t say so because I rarely use it and no, I won’t teach you. Ria shouldn’t have taught him. It’s another thing like the Mindtrick that’s a lot more cruel than I used to think. And, like I said, it’s not that useful. If we have time, I might teach you a touch-transfer, since the recipient has to consent for it to work.”

“Wait, so I could just touch Jiang Cheng and he can hear  _ my _ thoughts?”

Jiang Cheng looked like hearing Wei Wuxian’s thoughts was the absolute last thing he wanted.

“You have to direct a specific thought at the other person through a point of contact. There’s no chance of accidentally sending an intrusive thought, that way. My pada- erm, apprentice spent a week mentally sending me images of, and I quote”-- Anakin sighed loudly. -- “shapely bums after I taught her the technique. I’m telling you right now that if I  _ do _ teach you, and that’s a big if, I absolutely will not listen to or look at any of your thoughts unless we’re actively about to be killed if we speak aloud.”

Wei Wuxian threw his arm around Anakin’s shoulders. “Anakin-xiong, do you really think so poorly of me?”

“Yes.”

“Shameless,” Wangji added, which was the end of that. 

Wei Wuxian deflated, his entire body wobbling before he threw himself on Jiang Cheng and whined that everyone was being mean to him.

Jiang Cheng raised a fist and said he would show Wei Wuxian mean.

Nie Huaisang herded them inside before any actual violence could start.

\---

The disciple that brought Aruna lunch informed her that Anakin and the others had returned. She took the information with mixed feelings. Most, if not all, of her memories had come back, slotting into her soul with a ringing finality. They were no longer a mix of half-remembered people and broken phrases. The Jedi Order had tacitly agreed with the murder of her family and had her kept alive so she could be “redeemed.” Anger and resentment churned in her chest and harsh, stricken tears from the futility of those feelings dripped from her eyes.

She could kill Anakin with little trouble, but what would it grant her? Her family would still be dead. The people who perpetrated their murder would still believe in the inherent righteousness of the murders. The only tangible result would be the hole in her chest where her friend currently sat. Their friendship wasn’t much, but it was the most she’d had since waking up from the many surgeries.

Then there was the matter of the Nie Sect’s qi deviation. She had a theory. One she was confident in and now there were cultivators from other sects to test it against. But she didn’t want it to be correct. If she was right, then there was no cure, no way to unring the bell. Nie Mingjue would still die an early death.

She finished the food and then carefully summarized her notes on a fresh piece of paper. Hurt pride would make members of the Nie Sect challenge her conclusions, even if her testing proved her theory. She had to be exceptionally careful with her phrasing or the sect might refuse to implement the needed changes regardless. It was never pleasant to tell people they’d been doing something wrong for generations, even when they knew they needed a change.

Once she’d wasted as much time as she could justify, Aruna stood and carefully returned the books to their places on the shelves. She gathered her notes and summary and slipped out the library. The door closed behind her with an echoing finality. As expected, a class of disciples was training in the yard. When the instructor gave them a break, Aruna approached him.

She extended her Force Senses until she had the full measure of him. Then, she asked him to demonstrate a specific technique she’d discovered in the manuals. He was happy to comply, still impressed by her duel against the sect leader. He drew his saber and performed the technique three times. She thanked him for his help and scribbled the result onto her notes page with a scrap of charcoal.

The same disciple that had brought her lunch led her to the lounge where Anakin and the others were. The lounge was in chaos. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng were wrestling the floor. Nie Huaisang was dramatically bemoaning something or other to Anakin, who vehemently argued back, face red with embarrassment. Tucked into the only quiet corner was Wangji, who sat with his back to the wall, silently sipping from a cup of tea, completely nonplussed at the scene. He met her eyes and nodded in acknowledgement.

The second person to notice her was Nie Huaisang, who jumped from his seat and ran to hide behind her. “Aru-jie, they’re bullying me!”

“Why did you teach him how to read minds?” Anakin shouted, also climbing to his feet.

Aruna pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not that important. What, did he find out about your girlfriend?”

Nie Huaisang gasped. “Anakin-xiong has a wife  _ and _ a girlfriend?”

Anakin flinched.

“You  _ married _ her? When? How? Who the fuck officiated a wedding for a Jedi?”

“Look, it’s not what you-”

“By the ancestors! You’re all of, what, eighteen? And you got married? Maybe if you were a Preserver-era  _ mando’ade _ I could believe it, but you’re a Jedi and a child-”

“We’re in love. How else was I supposed to prove it?” Anakin asked with complete sincerity. In the background, Wangji seemed to be nodding his agreement.

The rest of the room was unconvinced.

Aruna threw her hands in the air. “That’s what gifts are for! Letters! Acts of service! Anything but a meaningless ceremony and official registration that could get you sent to a frozen cave on Csilla to meditate on your weaknesses until she dies!”

Silence followed her outburst. Anakin was stricken, half bent over and clutching a hand over his heart. His voice cracked. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”

“Not until the end of the war, no, but after? They’ll certainly try. The way you joined the Order was already something of a scandal, wasn’t it?”

Anakin grimaced. “Master Yoda didn’t think I was suitable for training, no.”

“That means they’ve been watching you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they already knew about your marriage and were just waiting for you to confess and there’s some invisible timer ticking down until you lose your chance and they punish you outright.”

Wei Wuxian tapped his lips. “You know, when he said there weren’t matchmakers, I was pretty sure people could just get married without consequences, but this sounds just like they tried to get married against their parents wishes. Can’t your sect just annul it?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m sure they already consummated it.”

Anakin’s flush brightened in answer.

Aruna rolled her eyes and then covered them with a hand. “That doesn’t matter. Ostensibly, our sect can’t interfere with sovereign powers. All they have the power to do is keep him away from his partner.”

“Do you really think admitting it at this point is the solution?”

“Ugh.” Aruna stepped fully into the room and pulled the table back to its position in the center of the room from where Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had moved it in their brawling. She used a touch of Force to heat the teapot and then poured herself a cup, though it had over-steeped. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent. When she opened them, everyone had moved to sit around the table, aside from Wangji who remained in his removed seat.

“For a moment, ignore the Code. It’s not important,” Aruna said. She glared Anakin into silence when he opened his mouth to protest. “The issue is that you’re unreliable and now have split loyalties. Your girl-- wife-- is a senator, right? How can you be trusted to follow orders instead of acting in a way that would benefit her politically? Plus, you’ve already been reported as a wildcard. I read your dossier when I was assigned to your master.” 

“A wildcard? That’s ridiculous!”

Aruna set her teacup on the table and looked him right in the eye. “How many times have you gone against orders to save people?”

“Saving people is our job!”

Nie Huaisang, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng all watched the conversation with rapt attention. They never went into any detail about what their sect was like, only that it was very different.

“Saving  _ populations _ is our job. You risk yourself and your underlings to save  _ individuals. _ That’s the problem.”

“But I care about them!”

“Which is exactly why attachments are forbidden. If you lose your squad saving one person, an entire city might be razed since you don’t have the power to fight them off.”

Anakin clenched his hands into fists. “What if they’re worth an entire city?”

“That’s not your judgement to make,” Aruna said.

“Shijie’s worth an entire city,” Wei Wuxian said. Jiang Cheng nodded his agreement.

“Brother was made to flee, when Cloud Recesses was attacked,” Wangji said from his corner.

“It’s not that no one is worth more than others,” Aruna said with a sigh. “It’s that Anakin doesn’t have the seniority to make that decision and flagrantly goes against orders when he tries to, which ironically just means it’ll be longer before he’s trusted.”

Anakin’s eyes went wide. “That’s why you’ve been pretending. That’s why you always acted so docile and holo-perfect when the masters were watching. So they’d trust you.”

“Yes, so I would finally have the freedom to leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tk, I hear you ask, I thought you hate the Jedi. Why is there such a reasonable explanation for why the council always questions and second-guesses Anakin? Are you saying the no-attachments rule doesn't actually mean no romance?
> 
> Here's the digs: fans have spent _years_ writing academic-level essays justifying the often incomprehensible decisions and actions of Anakin and the Jedi Order. I've read some of them (rather, I've had anons viciously throw them at me when I critize the Jedi). Furthermore, some writers for the Clone Wars cartoon are on that bandwagon and added in several instances of Anakin going against orders to save R2/Ahsoka and being chastised for it.
> 
> I really, truly don't believe Lucas had these justifications in mind when he was writing the movies. The OT and prequels just _aren't that deep_ and weren't intended to be. They were just a fun, jaunty space adventure that people clung to and then made better.
> 
> Next time: What's the problem with Nie cultivation? Will NMJ survive? What happened to the courting subplot?


	17. No Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin learns some manners.

Anakin was no stranger to discomfort. He was a slave as a child, discomfort was an old friend. Frankly speaking, he’d spent years trying to adjust to even the slightest comforts. If he’d been taken in by anyone less austere than the Jedi, surely he would have had even greater difficulty. Nevermind that Padme was former royalty and still quite firmly high class, he spent a majority of his time as a Jedi and not a husband.

But this was not physical discomfort that was easily compartmentalized. 

This was Ria -- Aruna -- kneeling in front of the Nie ancestral shrine. Where she’d been kneeling for a full day after a series of ceremonial kotows and recitation in the regional dialect. Uncomfortable was putting it mildly, especially with how no one else seemed to think anything of the display. The sun was high in the sky when Wei Wuxian appeared to drag him away. Wangji trailed behind at an awkward distance -- close enough it was clear he was following Wei Wuxian, but far enough back that only Wei Wuxian was impolite enough to hold a shouted conversation with him.

“Come on, Anakin-xiong. She’ll be here until after dinner, at least.” He threw a companionable arm over Anakin’s shoulders and steered him to the informal dining hall where the Nie disciples took their meals.

“I just don’t understand why this is necessary. She hasn’t done anything offensive. She  _ wouldn’t _ do anything offensive.”

Wei Wuxian tapped the side of his nose. “Aiyah, it’s not so simple.”

“Then explain it.”

“It is offensive,” Wangji said. Though only barely taller than Anakin, his presence loomed both physically and in the Force.

“Lan Zhan has the right of it. Ah, don’t make that face. It’s unspeakably rude for some outsider to come in and say that the Nie Sect is cultivating wrong.”

Anakin shook his head. “But they’re dying. Horribly! Obviously something  _ is _ wrong.”

“Still offensive.”

Anakin gritted his teeth. “I don’t understand what’s so offensive about not dying. If she told the Nie ancestors directly how to avoid qi deviation would they ignore her because it’s offensive to question them or would they listen and change what they did?”

“But she didn’t and the Nie ancestors established-”

“Who cares?!” Anakin yelled. He stopped walking and threw off Wei Wuxian’s arm. “They’re dead and Sect Leader Nie is going to suffer the same fate if he doesn’t listen to her. Who is going to complain that he changes his cultivation to survive? Ghosts?”

“Yes, actually,” Nie Huaisang said. He snapped open his fan and covered his frown. “Aru-jie told me that since your people don’t properly respect your dead, don’t provide them with burial goods, don’t venerate them, they’re impotent, unable to return as spirits or reenter the cycle of reincarnation. We are not so short-sighted as to let them perish forever and they are not so inattentive as to let us escape our duty.”

Anakin wilted, though he was more tired than embarrassed. This planet was so different from the rest of the galaxy. Anakin knew better than to try to apply galactic ‘standards’ to other people. He was ignoring everything he’d learned about the planet, just as much as he accused the Nie Sect of ignoring better information about their cultivation. The tiredness gave way to frustration. Obi-wan and the Jedi Council were always so sure, so convinced of their own knowledge and superiority that he’d never seen  _ them _ question anything like this. 

Would they come to this world and force them to stop venerating their ancestors? The consequences were ghouls, monsters and other things powered by spiritual energy that harmed people. He didn’t know what reincarnation was, if it wasn’t exactly what it said on the package, but it certainly seemed important. If he had cared more, been there more, done more, would that have given his mother another chance at life? One where she wasn’t a slave?

Anakin opened his mouth to speak, but realized his face was wet with tears. “Kriff.” He took the handkerchief Nie Huaisang offered him. “Thanks.” He took a few, steadying breaths. “Right, okay, I think I’m starting to understand, but then what are you supposed to do in this situation? Surely your ancestors aren’t  _ happy _ that their teachings are leading to your deaths.”

Nie Huaisang fanned himself and looked away. “It’s not simple. We have to repay the debt of being given life, both,” -- he gestured to himself with his fan and then swept it around to encompass all of the Unclean Realm -- “our bodies and our legacy. The… practice in question may lead to qi deviation, but it also led to our existence and everything we have.”

“So Ri- Aruna is just preemptively asking for forgiveness?”

Wangji answered in place of Nie Huaisang. “Questioning what is taught disregards the ancestors.”

Wei Wuxian cocked his head to the side. “Which is why Grandmaster Lan kicked me out of class.”

“Mn.”

“But our ancestors weren’t perfect. They can’t have accounted for things that didn’t exist or weren’t discovered yet,” Wei Wuxian said.

“There are proper methods.”

“Lan Zhan, proper methods take time. Death can happen like that!” He snapped his fingers. “Better to save lives and then ask forgiveness.” He met Wangji’s eyes and his face went through a journey of emotions. It was a silent conversation that went on long enough that Anakin was distinctly uncomfortable again.

Nie Huaisang snapped his fan shut. “We should get something to eat before Brother sees us not training.”

\---

Aruna knelt in the main hall of the Unclean Realm for half an hour before Sect Leader Nie, Nie Huaisang and Nie Zonghui arrived to hear her conclusions. She was certain they were anxious to hear them, to finally have a way to avoid their sect’s nigh-inevitible qi deviation. But there were appearances to maintain, procedures to be followed. Even with intermittent healing trances, her knees ached from more than thirty-six hours of kneeling, but she  _ needed _ to be taken seriously. Lives were on the line.

Sect Leader Nie sat in his throne while Nie Huaisang and Nie Zonghui took up positions on either side of him. Sect Leader Nie waved a hand at her in a brusque, dismissive manner that was entirely feigned. “Speak.”

“The issue of qi deviation within the Nie Sect is a complicated one,” Aruna said, not lifting her head. At first, she wouldn’t say anything they didn’t already know. She had to prove that she’d done her own due diligence in investigating the matter. “As the Fourth Nie Sect Leader told the other leaders of the Great Sects, the surface conclusion is that the combat style of the Nie Sect is aggressive to the point that an abundance of yang energy builds within its cultivators until they become unbalanced to the point of qi deviation.

“However, the implementation of meditation, calming rituals and other methods to restore balance provided only temporary respite. It would be a dishonor and disservice to imply that these methods were used improperly or that in their execution they were rendered less effective. The presumption must be, in this situation, that additional factors contribute qi deviation in Nie Sect cultivators.”

Aruna looked up, meeting each of the men’s eyes in turn. There were four people in the room, but seven entities in the Force. Sect Leader Nie, his saber, Baxia, Nie Zonghui, his two sabers, Nie Huaisang and Aruna herself. Additionally, there was a tiny spark from Nie Huaisang’s fan, which was close-enough to proving her point on its own. But how to say it. Even after thirty-six hours, she didn’t have a real plan. She swallowed. “Your spiritual tools are discrete, spiritual entities. While proper meditation can balance your yang energy in your  _ self, _ it can do nothing for the yang energy in your spiritual tool. Since the latter is bound to you, it will continue to pump yang energy into your system, even if you retire from combat.”

Sect Leader Nie leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at her. His presence in the Force multiplied until it was difficult for Aruna to breathe under the scrutiny. 

She kept a firm hold on her control, though her soul quaked in the face of such blatant intimidation. She’s read through their materials and tested her hypothesis. Maybe she didn’t have a full grasp of things, how was it possible that Sith never suffered from qi deviation? But she was confident in what she did know.

“Tell me how this is different from any other cultivation style? Are you claiming our sabers have so much more yang energy than someone who has cultivated for hundreds of years? How could one become immortal in this scenario?”

“All spiritual tools have loyalty, or at least attunement, but Nie Sect sabers have  _ will _ in a way others don’t. This is due to a difference in transmission of spiritual energy from core to tool.” She lowered her head again. “I can demonstrate.”

Sect Leader Nie gave permission with a sharp snap of his wrist. 

Aruna stood and then closed her eyes. She concentrated on the Force and pulled and twisted it to suit her purposes. Force use didn’t  _ require _ any kind of visual effects or dramatics. In most cases, it was subtle, unseen and slipping beneath notice, but at times humans thought that if they couldn’t see it, nothing was happening. Thus, one of the earliest lessons in Force manipulation was how to make one’s work visible. The most difficult aspect of the demonstration was manipulating her Life Force into something resembling a golden core.

She opened her eyes, drew her sword and pushed her will into the Force until the glow outshone the candles lighting the hall. Tendrils of Force traced over her skin like an anatomical model showing blood vessels, only instead of leading to and from a heart, they came from a spool she’d placed vaguely under her rib cage. First she showed linking her spiritual energy directly to the blade, as the Nie Sect did, then shifted to pushing the energy through her flesh and then into the blade, as Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian and Wangji did. She switched between the two methods several times.

Nie Huaisang figured it out first, eyes going wide, even as he hid the lower half of his face with his fan. Then his older brother took a sharp inhale and leaned back in his throne. Sect Leader Nie glanced at Nie Zonghui, who nodded back after he noticed, as well.

“That’s enough. I can see what you’re talking about.”

“Brother… Could such a small thing really…”

“It’s only one stroke between  _ xin _ and  _ bi. _ Of course it could.” He reached out to the weapon stand beside his throne and touched Baxia’s hilt with the tips of two fingers. The saber rattled. He looked from the weapon to Aruna. “Well then, what do you suggest?”

Aruna lowered her head. “There is nothing to be done aside from teach the next generation differently. These spiritual tools have spirits of their own. To destroy them… would be unconscionable.”

“You expect me to lay down Baxia. On the edge of war? Have you lost your mind?”

Without looking up, Aruna shook her head. “Of course not, Sect Leader Nie. I would never insult you. In the end, I couldn’t help. Please forgive me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience regarding updates.
> 
> On a good note, I don't have COVID.
> 
> On... the other, I got a mean comment that just sucked out all of my motivation for writing. Just all of it. :( Here's the reveal anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot be held responsible for my crimes against fandom. Find me on [tumblr](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/duveraun).


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